The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Lisa Gardner's newest Frankie Elkin missing-person mystery, Still See You Everywhere; I'm reading Joel H. Morris's historical fiction novel, set in 11th century Scotland with events surrounding the imagined origins of Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth, All Our Yesterdays; and I'm listening to Kirsten Bakis's gothic novel set on a cold, remote island with mysterious, wicked undercurrents, King Nyx. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Still See You Everywhere (Frankie Elkin #3) by Lisa Gardner Frankie Elkin is the best at finding missing girls and women that have been forgotten by the world. But Frankie isn't a cop and she isn't a private investigator. She's an unassuming middle-aged woman and a recovering alcoholic who has a compulsion: to locate missing people the authorities haven't been able to find. She also has ghosts in her past that she's trying to outrun. But her current mission is a first for Frankie: to find the long-missing sister of a convicted serial killer, who is scheduled to be executed in three weeks. The search will lead her to a remote Pacific island, where dangerous strangers, secrets, and storms threaten her safety. I'm reading Still See You Everywhere, scheduled for publication March 12, courtesy of NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing. Lisa Gardner is also the author of two other Frankie Elkin novels, which I loved, Before She Disappeared, One Step Too Far, as well as the Detective D.D. Warren, the FBI Profilers, and the PI Tessa Leoni series. 02 All Our Yesterdays: A Novel of Lady Macbeth by Joel H. Morris All Our Yesterdays is set in 11th century Scotland a decade before the events of Shakespeare's Macbeth. In Morris's novel, a young girl, the forgotten granddaughter of a Scottish king, tries to cope with her guilt over her mother's death; the cruelties of her husband, to whom she was wed at 15; the surrounding, constant wars endangering them all; and a dark, enigmatic prophecy. To keep her son safe, she'll go to unimaginable lengths--but in her desperate bid to secure a future for him and for herself, she may be embracing the doom foretold in the long-ago predictions looming over her. I'm reading an advance digital edition of All Our Yesterdays, scheduled for publication March 12, courtesy of NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam. 03 King Nyx by Kirsten Bakis Anna Fort has plenty of reservations about her husband's outlandish theories, but she dutifully assists him with his research into unexplained meteorological phenomena in the hopes that his book will eventually be publishable--and will allow them to drag themselves out of poverty. So when a reclusive, wealthy man invites Charles to spend the winter of 1918 on his remote, cold private island writing his book, Anna is supportive and accompanies him. But a strange feeling pervades everything on the island. Their host is absent, and while they are required to isolate and quarantine to prevent the spread of the deadly flu, many odd occurrences and sinister-feeling goings-on are making Anna wonder if they should ever have come--and if it's even possible to escape. I'm listening to King Nyx as an audiobook. I received an audiobook version of King Nyx courtesy of NetGalley and RB Media, Recorded Books.

Six More Bossy Favorite Reads So far in 2024 I've been posting Friday Greedy Reading Lists of some of my favorite reads of last year by genre; for my all-around favorites of last year, you can check out My Very Favorite Bossy 2023 Reads. You can find my first list of novels I loved reading last year here. Today's list is made up of more fiction I've loved in the recent-ish past, whether quirky, poignant, or attention-grabbing. If you've read any of these titles, I'd love to hear what you think! I'd also love to hear: what are some of your favorite reads, whether you loved them last year or more recently? 01 American Mermaid by Julia Langbein This story within a story is playful and satirical while providing deep issues to contemplate. It's different and captivating and silly and sobering. Penelope Schleeman is an English teacher struggling to make ends meet when her feminist novel American Mermaid becomes a bestseller. Penny is hooked on the promise of a big payday and leaves her teaching position in Connecticut to move to Los Angeles and turn her novel into a script. But others' visions for the story involve her eco-warrior main character morphing into a teen beauty wearing a clamshell bra, wiping away her complex hero's dark motivations, and erasing much of what makes the story worth telling. Then mysterious threats and unexplained feminist changes begin appearing within the script, aimed at the writers who know how to make a shallow, profitable movie--but who are picking apart what made her novel sing in the first place. The excerpts from the book within a book of American Mermaid show glimpses of the novel that is the basis for Penny's trajectory--while digging into themes of climate change, greed, and dangerous assumptions about ability and motivation. The story culminates in tragedy or triumph, depending on your point of view. For my full review, please check out American Mermaid. 02 Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful explores family bonds, broken connections, forging through pain, allowing for unconventional routes to happiness, and finding forgiveness. William grew up in a family broken by tragedy, the darkness and trauma of which shaped his childhood and overshadowed everything. He is emotionally closed off and only reliant upon himself. When he meets driven, plan-focused Julia in his freshman year of college, she pulls him into her high-spirited, joy-filled, energetic orbit--and into her loving family, which includes her volatile and no-nonsense mother, her beloved and romantic father, and her three charming sisters, who have always felt like interconnected pieces of a whole. When William's painful history resurfaces, it shakes the entire family with its repercussions. It's not clear whether he and Julia can go on--or if her family will ever be the same. I didn't expect the ways in which various characters redefine their bonds and reconsider their places in the world when they make choices that separate them from each other. The ways in which the family members reconvene were not neat or without pain, but were intriguing. Napolitano is also the author of Dear Edward, a book I adored. For my full review, please check out Hello Beautiful. 03 Yellowface by R. F. Kuang This darkly funny story made me cringe while staying riveted by the main protagonist's deeply faulted reasoning, criminal actions, and bumbling through the publishing industry of Kuang's Yellowface. Juniper Song is a bestselling author. But she isn't simply a hardworking writer overcoming sluggish first-book attention and sales, emerging with an enormous hit (and new pen name) overnight, as she would have others believe. Juniper is a longtime Yale acquaintance of Athena Liu--the Athena Liu, publishing's darling, with multiple critically acclaimed and celebrated titles--and the focus of June's years-long envy. When June witnesses Athena's death and then mysteriously comes up with a story about Chinese laborers during World War I, she covers her tracks to avoid anyone's asking: But wasn't Athena working on a similar story before her untimely end? As June navigates the cutthroat, sometimes superficial, often silly publishing world Kuang puts forth here, she wavers between attempting to justify her compounded, ethically devastating actions to Yellowface readers and panicking at the idea that the origins of and true credit for the story (Athena) will become clear. I listened to R. F. Kuang's Yellowface as an audiobook. Click here for my full review of Yellowface. 04 The Celebrants by Steven Rowley Rowley brings humor to this heartwarming--but never cloying--exploration of friendship, connection, messy relationships, heartbreak, and life and death. To think about life is to contemplate death--it's what makes living so valuable. Our time here is limited, gone in the blink of an eye. The Celebrants centers around college friends who made a pact after Alec, one of the original six, died before their 1995 graduation: if any of them is going through a crisis and needs to know they are loved more than they love themselves, they can call upon the others to assemble, no questions asked--for affection, support, and the sharing of sentiments typically reserved for after a loved one is gone. The members of the group may have grown apart, but in the decades to come, when one of them feels adrift and lost, they come together in sassy, funny, imperfect, loving support. Rowley doesn't smooth over realistically tangled, messy, intriguing conflicts or sober themes, yet he doesn't position the friendships in such a way that their existences magically solve life's deepest problems. You can check out my full review of The Guncle here. Rowley's husband Byron Lane wrote another book I loved, A Star Is Bored. You can find my review of that book here. If you're intrigued by books about facing mortality, you might be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality and Six More Powerful Books about Facing Mortality. For my full review, please check out The Celebrants. 05 A Play for the End of the World by Jai Chakrabarti Chakrabarti offers characters with complex struggles, hopes, and haunting memories who work to form deep, heartwarming connections in this luminously written debut novel. "For family you must fight like a tiger," Misha once told him. Chakrabarti's A Play for the End of the World takes place in 1970s New York and in rural India, with key characters dipping into each disparate world--and finding to their surprise that they have connected with a place, with its pace, and with the patterns of its people. When Jaryk learns that his like-a-brother friend Misha from his childhood World War II-era orphanage has died under mysterious circumstances while in India (on a trip he had wanted Jaryk to accompany him on), Jaryk travels there to collect his ashes. He becomes drawn into a bare-bones yet complicated Indian production of a play--the same play his orphanage director and father figure once put on with the children in the Warsaw Ghetto in an effort to introduce the concept of death before the tragic end he foresaw. The unlikely Jaryk-Lucy connection captured my heart, the Misha-Jaryk friendship was fantastic, and Chakrabarti's writing--about New York's bustle, small-town Indian life, the power of music and art, and a yearning for love and acceptance while fearing rejection and not feeling worthy--is luminous. Click here for my full review of A Play for the End of the World. You might also like some of the other books with Indian settings I've reviewed on this Bossy site. 06 Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro In Signal Fires, Dani Shapiro offers characters and consequences that connect through time and in unexpected ways. The loss and redemption here are tragic and beautiful. Signal Fires begins with three teenagers drinking in 1985, a car accident, a young doctor Ben Wilf, who comes upon the wreck and whose family is involved, and a haunting secret. Time passes, and a young family moves onto Division Street. Their astronomy-obsessed young son Waldo befriends the retired Dr. Wilf, whose wife is losing her memories at the same time vivid memories of past events come rushing back to Ben with uncomfortable impact. “If only time could be seen whole, then you could see the past remaining intact, instead of vanishing in the rearview mirror.” Signal Fires is about brokenness and the consequences of secrets and mistakes. But it is also largely about overcoming thwarted emotional connection and forging new ways of coming together through and after tragedy. I love Shapiro's writing and how she conveys the tragic beauty of human weakness and the relentless, if sometimes seemingly ill-advised, nature of hope. I adored the way the character of Waldo served as an unlikely conduit to wonder and how he bridges enormous barriers of all kinds. I listened to Signal Fires as an audiobook. Click here for my full review of Signal Fires. I mentioned Dani Shapiro's fascinating memoir Inheritance in the Greedy Reading List Six More Illuminating Memoirs to Lose Yourself In.

Young mom Annie's abrupt death leaves her four children, husband, and best friend reeling. Each of them must find a way back to themselves and back to each other without their key person in After Annie. In Anna Quindlen's newest novel After Annie, the abrupt death of the titular young mother--which occurs in the kitchen in front of the family just before dinner--leaves her four children, husband, and best friend reeling. Annie was in her early 30s, and she hadn't even been close to finishing what she'd started. She had a job she excelled at, offering care and steadiness at the nursing home; she and her dear lifelong best friend Annemarie (two Annes!) had been through the upheaval and crises of young pregnancy, addiction, and following different paths and struggling to stick together; and she and her husband Bill were in the thick of young parenthood, with endless plans but little money or time to enact any of them yet. Over the course of the next year, each of those who had been closest to her and who are left behind struggles and threatens to fall apart--both individually and also to collectively fall away from each other in a way that would have infuriated Annie. The thing that saves each of them from bottomless grief and from giving in to their most desperate, despairing, hopeless impulses is Annie's frequent voice in their heads, reassuring them, loving them, sticking by them. It was unsatisfying to see only glimpses of the pivotal figure of Annie--I found myself wanting more of these. She makes up the heart of the book and is the center of the wheel of characters rotating around her, yet little page time is spent with her directly because she dies so early in the novel. We spend the most page time with Annie's oldest child and only daughter, Ali, as she navigates young adulthood; with widower Bill, who belatedly recognizes his parenting and household ineptitude and also falls into the arms of the local woman who was after him in high school; and with best friend Annemarie, who is professionally successful and married but has been deeply invested in Annie's family and home life since Annie and Bill married. Annemarie realizes how essential Annie had been to her own sense of self and how lost she feels without her friend's guidance. The key characters make mistakes and stumble repeatedly before finding their way back to their new selves and their existence without Annie. I read After Annie courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? If you're interested in books about mortality, you might like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality and Six More Powerful Books about Facing Mortality.

The mystery bookends feel largely unimportant to the story, the cast of characters sometimes feels endless, and the story meanders, but there's heart in the connection between characters when crises inspire it. James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store tracks the victories, missteps, losses, and love among a host of characters in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in the 1930s. Chicken Hill is a hardscrabble neighborhood where Jewish families live alongside Black families--outside the sphere of power and wealth of the white members of Pottstown. Their cultures conflict in some ways, but their stories and existences overlap, and their challenges intersect when a young boy is taken from the community, culminating in a mysterious death, which raises questions decades later. Chona is one link between the two groups, serving as the key nonjudgmental middle-woman in the story. With her savvy smarts and big heart, she was one of my favorite characters. In The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, injustices also abound, and powerful, terrible men take advantage of the young or physically challenged in atrocious ways. Unlikely heroes save the victims (in one case, in elaborate and outlandish fashion) from further damage. The mystery that bookends the story is not essential to the novel. By the time the story ended, I had forgotten about the mystery's brief introduction at the beginning of the book. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is built upon the swirls of interconnected, meandering stories; the side plots; and the parade of characters, including many minor figures and their back stories, that make up the bulk of the book. I found myself wanting to feel more rooted in the story, in the setting, and in what the important issues were for the characters. Some of the story felt tedious, as with the ongoing saga of securing a water source and the extensive history of not having done so. I kept wondering if a stronger editorial hand might have tightened up the story so its essence could shine more brightly. I listened to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? McBride is also the author of Deacon King Kong and The Good Lord Bird.

I loved Enid's complicated, loving mother-daughter relationship as well as her best-friendship. But I was distracted by what felt like uneven pacing, multiple willfully delayed resolutions, and slapstick-seeming scenarios. In Emily Austin's Interesting Facts about Space, Enid is obsessed with space, and she could talk all day about black holes and the universe. She uses the sharing of space facts to deflect from emotions, uncomfortable situations, and facing the truth. In her spare time, Enid loves true crime podcasts and dates a variety of women from dating apps. She's beginning to understand that she's coping with past trauma that she's blocked; that she has social anxiety; that she has phobias and isn't clear on their roots; and that she's operating under a consistently high level of stress. Meanwhile she's trying to come to terms with the death of her previously absent father--and build relationships with her estranged half-sisters. Her quirky, beloved mother struggles with depression, and Enid struggles to keep an eye on her. Enid is exploring a new love interest when she becomes consumed by the idea that someone is following her. (And the stalker seems to have her most feared quality: he's a bald man.) Is this a paranoia inspired by her podcast listening? Or is someone really after her? I was intrigued by the book's premise, and I loved the science facts Enid spouted off at times, but in general, the story's tone frequently felt oddly zany, and the pacing felt uneven to me. At times the novel was so absurd as to seem slapstick, so that the important issues underlying the story were potentially poignant but not actually (for me) so. The bald-man phobia and the stalker premise were each so over the top in their willfully delayed resolutions, I felt myself growing irritated. I loved the idea of a complicated, imperfect, thrillingly expanding unconventional family. I loved the mother-daughter love. And I loved Enid's best-friendship. But I thought Enid's romantic "love," when it was called such, felt juvenile in that it seemed superficial, based on brief and limited connection, attraction, interest, and knowledge. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Atria Books. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Emily Austin is also the author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Rebecca Serle's upcoming novel in which the main protagonist receives decades of love-life predictions, Expiration Dates; I'm reading Amy Tintera's upcoming novel, in which the main protagonist may or may not have murdered her best friend and is tracked down by a podcast investigating the mystery, Listen for the Lie; and I'm listening to James McBride's novel exploring a poor 1930s Pennsylvania neighborhood and its' Jewish and Black families' purposes and missions, which sometimes intersect and other times conflict, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle Every time Daphne Bell meets a potential love interest, she receives a mysterious slip of paper that details how many days she will spend with that person. For twenty years, Daphne receives this guidance, sure that the universe is looking out for her and her love life. As predicted, she spends three days with Martin in Paris, five weeks in San Francisco with Noah, and three months with Hugo. Then one evening she goes on a blind date, but the slip of paper she receives has no number on it. It simply says the name of her date. It seems as though Jake is meant to be her forever match. But Daphne doubts the prediction--and her inability to tell Jake about her years of outside guidance builds a barrier between them. I'm reading Expiration Dates, scheduled for publication March 5, courtesy of NetGalley and Atria Books. Rebecca Serle is also the author of One Italian Summer, In Five Years, and other novels. 02 Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera Lucy is found wandering the streets of her small Texas town, covered in her best friend Savvy's blood. Everyone assumes she killed Savvy, and Lucy can't escape the suspicions and resentment surrounding the mysterious conditions of Savvy's death. Lucy moves to Los Angeles to start a new life, but when the host of the ultra-popular true-crime podcast "Listen for the Lie" tracks her down, Lucy must do the one thing she swore she'd never do: return to the scene of Savvy's murder to try to solve the mystery once and for all. I'm reading an advance digital edition of Listen for the Lie, scheduled for publication March 5, courtesy of NetGalley and Celadon Books. 03 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride James McBride's Heaven & Earth Grocery Store tracks the victories, missteps, losses, and love among a host of characters in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in the 1930s. Chicken Hill is a hardscrabble neighborhood where Jewish families live alongside Black families--outside the sphere of power and wealth of the white members of Pottstown. Their cultures conflict in some ways, but their stories and existences overlap, and their challenges intersect when a young boy is taken from the community, culminating in a mysterious death, which raises questions decades later. I'm listening to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store as an audiobook. McBride is also the author of Deacon King Kong and The Good Lord Bird.

My very favorite Bossy February reads! Here are the six books I most loved reading this past month. If you've read any of these titles, I'd love to hear what you think! And I'd also love to hear: what are some of your recent favorite reads? 01 The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen Pylväinen's novel explores the cooperation and conflict among cultures in a mid-nineteenth century community in the Arctic Circle, immersing the reader in a cold, unforgiving climate and in the long-held traditions of its varied characters. ...she wondered, was this what love was, to persist when you didn't want to, to try for patience another time.... In Hanna Pylväinen's The End of Drum-Time, it's 1851 in the Arctic Circle, and a small community of reindeer herders, a minister's family and his flock of followers, and a local shop owner whose greatest profit comes from liquor are all trying to get through the winter. In their remote location in the Scandinavian tundra, they're each carving out lives shaped by the unforgiving snow and cold. Their cultures are sometimes mysteries to each other, and at times conflict greatly with others' traditions. I was fascinated by Pylväinen's explorations of how the old ways and new ways pushed against each other, as did the Finn, Lapp, Sámi, Swedish, and Russian influences of the region. Religion is a particular conflict in the novel, with the Christian characters proving themselves to be naïve, rigid, judgmental, greedy, vain, and foolhardy. The End of Drum-Time was intriguing and kept me interested throughout; it was brutal and frustrating (these foolish men--!) but its setting was beautifully crafted. For more cold-setting stories, check out my Greedy Reading List Six Books with Cold, Wintry Settings to Read by the Fire. For my full review of this book, please see The End of Drum-Time. 02 Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs #1) by Jacqueline Winspear Maisie Dobbs is a formidable, dogged, whip-smart investigator working to ferret out the truth in the aftermath of World War I in this irresistible first installment of Winspear's 18-book historical fiction series. She knew she was out of bounds, but this was nothing new to her. She had spent much of her life out of bounds, living and speaking where, according to some, she had no business. Maisie Dobbs begins Winspear's series as a thirteen-year-old servant in a Belgravia mansion, but Maisie ultimately trains as a psychologist, with a World War I wartime interlude serving as a nurse, before turning her fascination with humans and her keen eye for detail to becoming an investigator--despite the fact that a female entrepreneur investigator is an unheard-of position for the time. The mystery of the book centers around a post-war haven for soldiers mentally and physically harmed by The Great War. But the mystery takes a back seat in the book to Maisie's explorations of human motivations, her interest in others' behavior, and her unorthodox methods of ferreting out the truth. I was dissatisfied with (and didn't fully buy into) the ending of the book, but I loved Maisie's overall headstrong manner and her rejection of societal limitations. I look forward to reading the next books and to seeing where Maisie goes next. Check out this Greedy Reading List for Six Historical Fiction Mysteries to Intrigue You. Click here for my full review of Maisie Dobbs. 03 The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn The Whalebone Theatre begins with offbeat children's performances on a lazy, decadent English estate in the 1920s and builds to the young-adulthood of each of three characters, which are deeply shaped by World War II. The war and all its deprivations seem relentless, but for Cristabel, there is a strange and guilty thrill running through it, for it is exactly this thinning of the ordinary that allows the unordinary through. Joanna Quinn's debut novel is a hefty 558 pages, and the story sweeps through time from the 1920s malaise of the children and the excess of the adults on a secluded English estate, Chilcombe Manor, on to World War II, as experienced by a community of family and friends. The beginning of the book moves quite slowly, which is fitting for the decadent, ongoing series of lavish dinner parties, hangovers, persistent hangers-on, and malaise occurring for the adults, who are largely without pressing business or life missions where they might direct their generational wealth. The children are largely unattended during this time, but their bonds to each other are solidified. The pacing of the story picks up, appropriately, when World War II begins to shift the world, exerting changes that finally trickle down to Chilcombe and its inhabitants. I loved reading as the children come into themselves--in fits and starts--as young adults, and I came to care deeply about them, their roles in the wartime efforts, and their potential for various happy-ever-afters. Click here for my full review of The Whalebone Theatre. 04 Unsinkable by Jenni L. Walsh I loved each of the historical fiction story's two timelines--following a stewardess on board The Titanic as well as a British spy working with the WWII French Resistance--and the details of life in each time, but I found the ending's resolutions too easy. The book's past timeline is set in the early 20th century, as Violet, a young ship's stewardess bent on providing for her family after her father's death and mother's onset of illness, works aboard ships including, as the story sweeps along, The Titanic. I love a ship-life story, and I was taken with the details of Violet's caring for the elite passengers. The story's later timeline takes place in the time of World War II as Daphne, an intelligent and educated young woman who is emotionally closed off and desperately trying to impress her estranged, famous father, serves as a spy assisting the French Resistance. Throughout Unsinkable, Daphne and Violet fought through unimaginable difficulties, focused on their duties at the expense of their romantic happiness, witnessed various horrors, and yet recognized and cultivated an unlikely spark of hope for themselves and their futures that felt hard-won and intriguing. The final scenes felt oddly clean and neatly wrapped up with a bow as though according to a formulaic "happy ending" equation, and I found this shift from the appealingly messy, imperfect, wonderful, adventurous, tragic lives shown in the bulk of the book to a smooth, no-loose-ends set of outlandish coincidences and resolutions jarring rather than wholly satisfying. Please click here for my full review of Unsinkable. 05 Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino In Beautyland, Bertino offers a poignant, funny, strange story full of extraterrestrial observations of humans and their behavior that ring true. This was odd and lovely. Adina is born on Earth just as Voyager 1 launches into space. Her mother is a street-smart, scrabbling single parent, while Adina is an unusually perceptive child--with knowledge of another planet, a vivid nighttime school she attends in her mind, and faraway extraterrestrial relatives who have asked for her observations about humans and life on earth--which she provides by sending them her reflections through an otherworldly fax machine. The reader is privy to Adina's many missives to her extraterrestrial family--and their often-terse replies to her. She feels caught between existences, and the book pulls to a powerful but understated end in which this push and pull is resolved. I found myself torn throughout reading this; was Adina a character struggling with mental illness and imagining her superiors' replies, or was she truly an alien in a human "shell"? I believed in the latter, but establishing the definitive truth of the situation didn't ultimately matter deeply to me: Adina's eyes offered a beautiful, odd, lovely peek at human behavior, and her observations were just wonderful. For my full review, check out Beautyland. If you like this book, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Robots, Humans and Alien Life, and AI. 06 Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher Lex Croucher's queer medieval rom-com--the author's debut young-adult novel--is an absolute gem; it's full of excellent banter and lots of heart. I smiled while reading this one. “Nobody else is ever going to care as much as you do about the things that you want, Gwendoline. So it's up to you --you can put them aside forever, if you can live with that, or you can put on your big-girl girdle and demand more for yourself.” It's hundreds of years after King Arthur's reign, and his descendant and namesake Arthur, a future lord and committed partier and social butterfly, has long been betrothed to the short-tempered princess Gwendoline. Gwendoline has strong opinions and is feeling constricted in her prescribed royal role even without the weight of her pending marriage upon her. But Gwendoline and Arthur detest each other. And when they're forced to spend the summer together at Camelot to prepare for their upcoming nuptials, it doesn't take long for them to realize that Art has been kissing a boy and that Gwen has a crush on the only female knight in the kingdom. The premise of Lex Croucher's Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is irresistible, the pacing is great, and the banter is excellent--funny dialogue is a favorite element of mine. I adored the voices of the characters and witnessing their growth over the course of the story. For my full review, please see Gwen & Art Are Not in Love.

ICYMI: Lauren Groff explores the secrets, lies, and different lived experiences of spouses in a decades-long marriage in this dual-perspective novel. Great swaths of her life were white space to her husband. What she did not tell him balanced neatly with what she did. Still, there are untruths made of words and untruths made of silences, and Mathilde had only ever lied to Lotto in what she never said. Like all marriages, Lotto and Mathilde's is made up of two stories: each of their unique experienced realities of the relationship. In Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff explores Lotto and Mathilde both inside and outside of the marriage. The couple was married and deeply in love at the tender age of 22. As time passed, their dynamics became more complicated, tangled in the messiness of growing up together. They formed more full versions of themselves as individuals--versions that sometimes pushed against the marriage itself. The first section felt long and didn't fully hook me, but the change of perspective in the second half and the various denouements revealed there did. I'm not often a fan of omniscient asides, and those pulled me out of the first section of the novel and felt like interruptions. But the revealed backstory in the second part of the novel was dark and strange and creepy, with surprises and twists that intrigued me. In the end, I was more taken with the writing voice than the story being told, and the writing made me want to read other novels by Groff. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Groff is also the author of The Vaster Wilds, Florida, Matrix, Arcadia, The Monsters of Templeton, and other books.

A former CIA operative retires to small-town Maine--along with other former agents--to live out a quiet existence, until figures from the past roar in to turn everything on its head. Maggie Bird is a retired CIA operative who has made a simple home for herself in rural Maine. She's tried not to make emotional connections and she keeps to herself--old habits from her former life. Then Maggie is visited by someone with knowledge of her past--just before a dead body shows up in her driveway and someone tries to kill Maggie. All of the upheaval seems connected to an operation from years earlier, "Malta"--and Maggie's perceived betrayal of key players in it. Maggie just can't figure out who's still alive and who would suddenly be after revenge. She also suspects that she can't trust the Agency after a data breach revealed the names of the Malta operatives involved. Unbeknownst to the other citizens in Purity, Maine, the town has drawn multiple former intelligence agents (they make up the "martini club" in the series title). They didn't all work together in their former lives, but they are friends--despite habitual emotional distance--with commonalities in their backgrounds. Now they operate as a team to try to determine who is after Maggie and why. The dogged local acting sheriff, Jo Thibodeau (a great and legit Maine last name), is complicating things, pushing for answers and determined to figure out what's going on. The story tracks back through Maggie's past, including her missions and her romantic life, and introducing figures who are connected to her present problems. Everything about this premise was a slam dunk for me: spies, Maine, the community of retirees with fascinating pasts, reemerging danger. I was intrigued by the early pages, centered around the quiet Maine life of a group of retired CIA agents with fascinating pasts. I didn't feel much of the connection between Declan and Maggie, which Gerritsen seemed to be building the foundation for in preparation for future books, and I was less interested in the page time spent tracing past events and the Malta operation, although the story's plot and tension certainly rely heavily upon that element. This was a great setup for a series. I'd like to read more Gerritsen novels. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Tess Gerritsen is the author of the 13-book Rizzoli and Isles mystery series as well as many other books.

In Erlick's debut novel, each adult in the world can know the length of their life if they choose to. The story's turns may not feel like a surprise, but the exploration of mortality, what makes a life worth living, and undying love are fascinating. The measure of your life lies within. In Nikki Erlick's debut novel, one morning, each adult around the world receives a mysterious box with an inscription on the outside reading "The measure of your life lies within" and a string inside it. The source of the boxes is unknown, but it quickly becomes clear that each person's string length correlates to the number of years the recipient will be alive. Some choose not to look into their boxes at all, while others use the knowledge of their short strings as excuses to act without the same consequences as before. Some with long strings question the participation of "short stringers" in delicate jobs; some couples break up, or rush to marry, or prematurely mourn the upcoming loss of their love; and the government attempts to force the sharing of string length and to manipulate the information for its own use. You may not be surprised by any of the turns each storyline takes here, but the string dilemma leads to an examination of mortality, morality and judgment, the evaluation of the true meaning of a life, and more. I found these explorations the most compelling part of the story by far. I listened to The Measure as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? The Measure is Nikki Erlick's first book. If you're interested in books that explore mortality, you might like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality and Six More Powerful Books about Facing Mortality.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Anna Quindlen's upcoming novel about living after a loved one is lost and staying connected to them, After Annie; I'm listening to Nikki Erlick's story about each person in the world being told the length of their lives, The Measure; and I'm reading the first in Tess Gerritsen's Martini Club series about a retired CIA operative in rural Maine whose past comes back to haunt her, The Spy Coast. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 After Annie by Anna Quindlen In Anna Quindlen's upcoming novel After Annie, the sudden death of a young mother leaves her children, husband, and friends reeling. But over the course of the next year, what saves each of them from bottomless grief is Annie's constant voice in their heads, reassuring them, loving them, sticking by them. After Annie is about our lasting impact on those we love, even after we're gone. If you're interested in books about mortality, you might like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality and Six More Powerful Books about Facing Mortality. I'm reading After Annie, scheduled for publication February 27, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. 02 The Measure by Nikki Erlick The measure of your life lies within. In Nikki Erlick's debut novel, one morning, each adult around the world receives a mysterious box with an inscription on the outside reading "The measure of your life lies within" and a string inside it. The source of the boxes is unknown, but it quickly becomes clear that the string length correlates to the number of years the recipient will be alive. Some choose not to look into their boxes at all, while others use the knowledge of their short strings as excuses to act without the same consequence as before; some with long strings question the participation of "short stringers" in delicate jobs; some couples break up, or rush to marry, or prematurely mourn the upcoming loss of their love. The dilemma leads to an examination of morality, judgment, the meaning of a life, and more. I'm listening to The Measure as an audiobook. 03 The Spy Coast (The Martini Club #1) by Tess Gerritsen Maggie Bird, a retired CIA operative who has made a home for herself in rural Maine, is visited by someone with knowledge of her past--just before a dead body shows up in her driveway and someone tries to kill Maggie. And it all seems connected to an operation from years earlier. But Purity, Maine, has drawn multiple former intelligence agents (the "martini club" in the series title), and together, they try to determine who is after Maggie and why. The story tracks back through Maggie's past, including her missions and her romantic life, and introducing figures who are connected to her present problems.

Six Four-Star (and Up) Bossy Mystery Reads This is the time in the year when you may be asking yourself, "Is she going to just keep rehashing all the big hits of her past year of reading?" Well, yes, she is! I love a Favorites list, and I've made a Bossy spreadsheet (ahem!) of my favorite reads of the past year by genre, so the hits are going to keep coming! So I suggest buckling up, buttercups! If you want more favorite-mystery lists, stay tuned for round 2 of last year's Bossy favorites, coming soon. And if you're greedy about reading lists like I am, you can also check out the lists I posted last year around this time, Six Four-Star Mystery Reads I Loved Last Year and Six More Four-Star Mysteries I Loved Last Year. You can also check out My Very Favorite Bossy 2023 Reads for my overall favorite reads from last year. You can click here for other mysteries I've reviewed on Bossy Bookworm. And here's a link to my Greedy Reading Lists featuring mystery titles. What are some of your favorite mystery reads? If you've read any of the books listed here, I'd love to hear what you think! 01 What Remains by Wendy Walker Wendy Walker's thriller focuses on a detective, her stalker, and the lengths both will go to to try to get what they want. This is a character-driven mystery with a twist. When Detective Elise Sutton stumbles into a crime--a gunman is wandering a big-box store, shooting--she draws her gun for the first time in her career and takes down the shooter, saving at least one bystander's life. But when guilt and self-doubt lead her to track down the almost-victim, Wade Austin, he assures her that her actions saved him. But then he insinuates himself into Elise's life in odd and alarming ways. It becomes clear that he has been learning from the online notes of a class Elise once taught on getting away with murder so that he may attract attention yet evade detection--and, most importantly, make sure Elise knows he's in control of her destiny. In order to keep her husband, young daughters, and partner safe, Elise may have to keep some crucial secrets and take unimaginable risks in an attempt to outsmart her stalker. The story is told with alternating chapters focused on a chilling crime that feels connected to the Elise-Wade situation, and this second storyline doesn't bode well for Elise's future. This is a character-driven mystery with an interesting twist. For my full review, check out What Remains. 02 As Good As Dead (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder #3) by Holly Jackson Jackson doesn't skimp on heart-pounding pacing, captivating character development, and dark turns in this third book in her young adult mystery series. I never would have predicted the twists. Sign me up for all Pippa Fitz-Amobi books, forever, please. As Good As Dead is the final book in A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, a series I've loved, and I've been delaying reading this third and final installment due to my willful denial that the series is ending, my intense love for the characters of Pip and Ravi, and Holly Jackson's smart, sassy, irresistible storytelling. Ever since Pip's book two detective work ended in an important resolution, she's been coping with the significant trauma of that case's dramatic final events. She's in danger of being sued for libel by Max Freaking Hastings, who Pip knows is a terrible person who has done terrible things--which is why she said so, passionately, on her podcast. And she can't shake a general sense of unease, as though she's missing something. The direction the book takes is fascinating. Jackson does not let off the gas pacing-wise. The unexpected twists and turns kept me riveted while Pip's unfailing bravery and her hero's struggles and emotional turmoil threatened to break my heart. For my full review (and links to my reviews of the other books in this series), check out As Good As Dead. 03 Exiles (Aaron Falk #3) by Jane Harper The third in Jane Harper's Aaron Falk series offers procedural detail, a lush Australian setting, and character development I found heartwarming and immensely satisfying. I love Aaron Falk stories and I loved the twisty interconnectedness of the characters in Exiles. Harper allows for Falk to develop more fully as a character--as a friend, a romantic interest, a father figure, and a detective. Yet she allows for new opportunities for him that felt real and possible, which I again loved. I wasn't ever sure who was responsible for the multiple tragedies at the heart of the story, and the resolutions make sense. Meanwhile Harper explores loyalty, procedural details related to the past and near past, beginnings and endings, and looooove. Jane Harper's The Dry (Aaron Falk #1) is set in small-town Australia with dark secrets and twists and turns, and she offers more of her excellent pacing in Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2). I'm in for all Jane Harper and all Aaron Falk stories! Exiles was the right mystery at the right time for me. For my full review, check out Exiles. 04 A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell #2) by Deanna Raybourn This second book in Raybourn's historical fiction mystery series, set in Victorian London, hooked me even more fully into Veronica and Stoker's pasts, partnership, and their growing fondness for and vulnerability with each other. I loved it. Victorian lepidopterist (she studies butterflies and moths) and adventurer Veronica Speedwell teams up with her natural-history and mystery-solving partner Stoker to try to prove that local art patron and society figure Miles Ramsforth is innocent of murdering his mistress and should not be executed in just a few days. I loved A Perilous Undertaking even more than A Curious Beginning--the wonderful character development for Veronica and Stoker; the allusions to each of their complicated pasts; their hilarious banter; and their strong-willed, stubborn, clever partnership. The mystery was interesting, with salacious elements, and everyone was a potential suspect. I was satisfied by the layered revelations of the truth. The danger and dogged exploration of various avenues to information felt as though they primarily served to create powerful moments of reluctant, heartbreaking vulnerability between Veronica and Stoker. I'm obsessed with this will-they/won't-they friendship and also the deep dedication to one another that transcends any attraction, irritation, or challenge. For my full review, please see A Perilous Undertaking. (And check out my rave reviews of book 1, A Curious Beginning; book 3, A Treacherous Curse; book 4, A Dangerous Collaboration; and book 5, A Murderous Relation. Raybourn has written nine books in the series so far, and I intend to happily read them all.) Deanna Raybourn is also the author of the wonderful stand-alone mystery Killers of a Certain Age. 05 The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike #7) by Robert Galbraith In what's possibly my favorite book yet of the seven in the Cormoran Strike series, we see some emotional growth, potentially game-changing revelations and resolutions, and a fascinating plot that revolves around taking down a cult from the inside. "It’s dangerous to make a cult of your own unhappiness. Hard to get out, once you’ve been in there too long. You forget how." In the newest doorstop of a series installment (960 pages; the audiobook is 34 hours and 14 minutes), Cormoran Strike is cursorily on a health kick, he and Robin remain drawn to each other but continue to keep up emotional barriers to a deeper connection, and the agency is focused on trying to take down the fictional religious cult Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC)--from the inside. It's satisfying that Robin gets the majority of page time as she bravely infiltrates the UHC and works to uncover the truth of rumored brainwashing, cruel punishments, sexual abuse, and suspicious deaths. Strike hasn't magically matured emotionally, but he does become somewhat more thoughtful and deliberate in his life choices as the book progresses, ultimately (briefly) showing a potentially game-changing vulnerability that I loved. I found the witness and suspect interviews and Strike and Robin's methods of extracting information particularly interesting. The side plot of a rival detective agency and the links between the UHC and Strike's personal past were intriguing. For my full review, check out The Running Grave. You can click here to check out my reviews of Cormoran Strike books 1 through 4, book 5, and book 6. 06 American Girl by Wendy Walker This is another whodunit winner from Wendy Walker: a character-driven mystery with a neurodivergent main protagonist, small-town intrigue, and satisfying revenge. Charlie is a math-whiz teen with autism who is working as much as possible at The Triple S sandwich shop so that she can one day afford to leave her Pennsylvania hometown and attend MIT. But when the shop owner, Clay Cooper, who owns several other local businesses, is a town council member, and has his hand in most of the local business, turns up dead, everyone becomes a suspect, including all of his employees. Charlie must help discover the truth about what happened in order to clear her coworkers--and Charlie herself--from suspicion of murder. Wendy Walker writes wonderful, character-driven suspense that keeps me hooked as she guides the reader through a twisty mystery. The fierce loyalty and revenge elements in this intriguing whodunit were immensely satisfying. Wendy Walker is also the author of What Remains and Don't Look for Me as well as All Is Not Forgotten, Emma in the Night, and The Night Before. Please click here for my full review of American Girl.

Pylväinen's novel explores the cooperation and conflict among cultures in a mid-nineteenth century community in the Arctic Circle, immersing the reader in a cold, unforgiving climate and in the long-held traditions of its varied characters. ...she wondered, was this what love was, to persist when you didn't want to, to try for patience another time.... In Hanna Pylväinen's The End of Drum-Time, it's 1851 in the Arctic Circle, and a small community of reindeer herders, a minister's family and his flock of followers, and a local shop owner whose greatest profit comes from liquor are all trying to get through the winter. In their remote location in the Scandinavian tundra, they're each carving out lives shaped by the unforgiving snow and cold. Their cultures are sometimes mysteries to each other, and at times conflict greatly with others' traditions. I was fascinated by Pylväinen's explorations of how the old ways and new ways pushed against each other, as did the Finn, Lapp, Sámi, Swedish, and Russian influences of the region. Religion is a particular conflict in the novel, with the Christian characters proving themselves to be naïve, rigid, judgmental, greedy, vain, and foolhardy. The men of the story are singularly focused on their livelihoods--they're capable of physical doggedness and of persistence. The reindeer herders, for example, hold immeasurable knowledge of the habits of their animals and of the weather and terrain around them. But the male characters are largely disappointments to the women, who wish they had actually earned the confidence they often exude; wish they were reliable and emotionally strong; and wish the men allowed for gray areas and were open to understanding nuances. The men abandon, bluster and condescend, are weak to temptation, plod along in the face of destruction, and wait too long to act. The women frequently see the clear way but are usually powerless to effect change, so the men's missteps and ineptitude are at the heart of each disaster in the book. The End of Drum-Time was intriguing and kept me interested throughout; it was brutal and frustrating (these men--!) but its setting was beautifully crafted. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I read The End of Drum-Time as my March book club book. For more cold-setting stories, check out my Greedy Reading List Six Books with Cold, Wintry Settings to Read by the Fire.

The Whalebone Theatre begins with offbeat children's performances on a lazy, decadent English estate in the 1920s and builds to the young-adulthood of each of three characters, which are deeply shaped by World War II. The war and all its deprivations seem relentless, but for Cristabel, there is a strange and guilty thrill running through it, for it is exactly this thinning of the ordinary that allows the unordinary through. Joanna Quinn's debut novel is a hefty 558 pages, and the story sweeps through time from the 1920s malaise of the children and the excess of the adults on a secluded English estate, Chilcombe Manor, on to World War II, as experienced by a community of family and friends. Quinn traces the lives of the unflappable orphan Cristabel Seagrave, her stepsister Flossie, and her cousin Digby (raised in the same household as siblings); as well as their inept parents, their parents' unpredictable friends--mainly artists and partiers--that flock to Chilcombe and stay and stay; and the servants who make possible the family's privileged life of debauchery, boredom, and flashes of thrill. Cristabel, Flossie, and Digby are often uncomfortable with the roles placed upon them by others (the difficult and wild orphan, the pleaser of a daughter without a backbone, and the cherished, golden male heir) as they seek to establish their own identities. The nontraditional parental figures--a Russian artist and frequent visitor, a rough-edged maid, a figurative uncle--exert occasional, sometimes powerful influence over the children and how they consider their places in the world. The beginning of the book moves quite slowly, which is fitting for the decadent, ongoing series of lavish dinner parties, hangovers, persistent hangers-on, and malaise occurring for the adults, who are largely without pressing business or life missions where they might direct their generational wealth. The children are largely unattended during this time, but their bonds to each other are solidified. The pacing of the story picks up, appropriately, when World War II begins to shift the world, exerting changes that finally trickle down to Chilcombe and its inhabitants. I loved reading as the children come into themselves--in fits and starts--as young adults, and I came to care deeply about them, their roles in the wartime efforts, and their potential for various happy-ever-afters. The Whalebone Theatre meanders from children's makeshift performances put on in a theatre framed by whale ribs to spy missions related to the French Resistance and the tragedies of war. This is a lovely book to sink into. I listened to The Whalebone Theatre as an audiobook, narrated wonderfully by Olivia Vinall. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? The Whalebone Theatre is Joanna Quinn's debut novel. For books I've read and reviewed about World War II, click here.

Maisie Dobbs is a formidable, dogged, whip-smart investigator working to ferret out the truth in the aftermath of World War I in this irresistible first installment of Winspear's 18-book historical fiction series. She knew she was out of bounds, but this was nothing new to her. She had spent much of her life out of bounds, living and speaking where, according to some, she had no business. Maisie Dobbs begins Winspear's series as a thirteen-year-old servant in a Belgravia mansion, taken in and trained for service after the death of her beloved mother and her father's inability to provide for her. But Maisie's sharp intelligence and intense curiosity are evident to the lady of the house, the wealthy feminist Lady Rowan, and to Lady Rowan's well-educated family friend and investigator, Dr. Maurice Blanche. Together they begin to train Maisie for greater things than being a housemaid. She trains as a psychologist, with a World War I wartime interlude serving as a nurse, before turning her fascination with humans and her keen eye for detail to becoming an investigator, despite the fact that a female entrepreneur investigator is an unheard-of position for the time. The mystery of the book centers around a post-war haven for soldiers mentally and physically harmed by The Great War. But the mystery takes a back seat in the book to Maisie's explorations of human motivations, her interest in others' behavior, and her unorthodox methods of ferreting out the truth. I was unpleasantly surprised to find out at the end of the book that Maisie has been cowardly on one significant front. While avoiding the unpleasant reality of post-war tragedies feels like plausible human nature, the postponement of facing the difficult truth of her loved one's plight for years upon years didn't feel like a Maisie-type reaction, and I found myself simultaneously not fully buying into it and disappointed in the situation. I loved Maisie's headstrong manner and rejection of societal limitations, and I look forward to the next books and to seeing where Maisie goes next. I listened to Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs as an audiobook. Check out this Greedy Reading List for Six Historical Fiction Mysteries to Intrigue You. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Jacqueline Winspear is the author of 18 Maisie Dobbs novels as well as a memoir, This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing, a standalone novel, The White Lady, a World War I-set novel, The Care and Management of Lies, and the nonfiction book What Would Maisie Do?

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Hanna Pylväinen's The End of Drum-Time, about a community in the Arctic Circle in the mid-nineteenth century; I'm listening to Joanna Quinn's story of an English manor and its various inhabitants, The Whalebone Theatre; and I'm listening to the first in Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen In Hanna Pylväinen's The End of Drum-Time, it's 1851 in the Arctic Circle, and a small community of reindeer herders, a minister's family and his flock of followers, and a local shop owner whose greatest profit comes from liquor are all trying to get through the winter. In their remote location in the Scandinavian tundra, they're each carving out lives shaped by the unforgiving snow and cold. The old ways and new ways push against each other, as do the Finn, Lapp, Sámi, Swedish, and Russian influences of the region. I'm reading The End of Drum-Time as my March book club book. For more cold-setting stories, check out my Greedy Reading List Six Books with Cold, Wintry Settings to Read by the Fire. 02 The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn The war and all its deprivations seem relentless, but for Cristabel, there is a strange and guilty thrill running through it, for it is exactly this thinning of the ordinary that allows the unordinary through. Joanna Quinn's debut is a doorstop of a book at 558 pages, and the story sweeps through time from the 1920s to World War II, tracking the lives within a community of family and friends on a secluded English estate, Chilcombe Manor. Quinn traces the lives of the unflappable orphan Cristabel Seagrave, her stepsister Flossie, and her cousin Digby, as well as their inept parents and parental figures, the influential and unpredictable artists that flock to Chilcombe, and the servants who make possible the family's privileged life of decadence, boredom, and flashes of thrill. I'm listening to The Whalebone Theatre as an audiobook. 03 Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs #1) by Jacqueline Winspear Maisie Dobbs begins Winspear's series as a thirteen-year-old servant in a Belgravia mansion, taken in and trained after the death of her beloved mother. But her sharp intelligence and intense curiosity are evident to Lady Rowan and a family friend, Dr. Maurice Blanche, who begin to train her for greater things than being a housemaid. She trains as a psychologist, with a wartime interlude as a nurse, before turning her keen eye for detail and for noticing things to becoming an investigator. I'm listening to Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs as an audiobook.

Six Great Bossy Science Fiction and Fantasy Reads The Obsessive Wrap-Up of Favorite Reads continues! If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear what you think! You can click here for other science fiction and fantasy books that I've reviewed on Bossy Bookworm. I'd love to hear: what are some of your favorite science fiction reads? 01 The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi #1) by Shannon Chakraborty I loved every bit of the story of willful, sometimes grumpy pirate Amina al-Sirafi and her quest, her strategic swearing, her strength, her fierce loyalty, and her messy, grand, swashbuckling adventures. “Amina, if you insist on going in alone, at least stop caressing your dagger.” I listened to the first installment in Shannon Chakraborty's Amina al-Sirafi fantasy series, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, as an audiobook, which was narrated by the fantastic Lameece Issaq and Amin El Gamal. Amina is a notorious former pirate--ruthless, scandalous, and invincible--who has dropped out of sight and settled down to raise her young daughter alongside her strong-willed mother. Then a mysterious, wealthy matriarch preys upon Amina's need for funds--and her desire for one final, glorious success. Amina soon finds herself entangled in a dangerous ocean quest to rescue a young woman, while fighting to keep her own family safe. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is fun, funny, and smart, and I was hooked on the lightning-fast banter; the gruff and independent, saucy, and irresistible main protagonist in the feminist Muslim character of Amina; and the sea adventure with various fantastical elements. Chakraborty offers some closure to book one while setting up a sequel. I am alllll in on this series and can't wait for the second installment. For my full review of this book, please see The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. 02 Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes #1) by Travis Baldree The first in the Legends & Lattes series is a cozy fantasy story about new beginnings, the transformative power of coffee, and vulnerability and unexpected love. After twenty-two years of adventuring, Viv had reached her limit of blood and mud and bullshit. An orc’s life was strength and violence and a sudden, sharp end—but she’d be damned if she’d let hers finish that way. It was time for something new. I had this book on my to-read list for ages, and both my friend Jamie and my nephew Jamie sang its praises, so I finally listened to Legends & Lattes. Viv has spent years hunting down creatures for bounties, wielding her sword, and doing anything ruthless needed to bag her prey. But Viv has discovered the wonder of coffee and has determined to make a new start: she's headed to the city of Thune to settle down and open its first coffee shop. This is a sweet, cozy fantasy story that feels like a big hug; it's a love letter to coffee, to the beauty of diversity, to unexpected and special connections, and to the joy and satisfaction in a settled life surrounded by loyal friends and found family. For my full review, please see Legends & Lattes. 03 Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1) by Alexandra Bracken Alternative Arthurian legends twist through this first in a young adult fantasy series, but what hooked me was the fearless, hardened, fiercely loyal, savvy, and crafty main protagonist Tamsin as she struggled to find her place in both worlds of the story. In Alexandra Bracken's young adult novel Silver in the Bone, sorceresses and dark magical beings populate the underground beneath Boston. Tamsin Lark is separate from them all, as she was born without magic. She knows how to find things, she's crafty, she's ruthless, and she'll do anything for her brother Cabell. But when her last remaining parent figure disappears without a trace, Tamsin is forced to go to great lengths and seek enchanted relics--of dubious provenance and with potentially disastrous power--in order to keep herself and Cabell alive. Bracken's story offered sassy banter that I loved, a great enemies-to-(not-quite)-lovers setup, a strong young female protagonist with a heart of gold, female power all over the place, captivatingly creepy elements, and fidelity that in some cases are shown to be betrayals that take your breath away. The book ends on a cliffhanger, setting up book two, which will hopefully be published in 2024 and which I can't wait to read. For my full review, please check out Silver in the Bone. 04 Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki Lepucki's strange, interesting time-travel novel centers around betrayal, broken hearts, second chances, and the power of hate--and of love. When Ursa was a child she was horribly abused by her father, and while she feels that she's pushed beyond it, the trauma has undoubtedly shaped her. When she flees to remote California, her ability to travel through memory to revisit the past secures her a revered role in a counterculture 1950s community that builds around her. A friend's borrowed, rambling home becomes a refuge for unwed mothers and mothers-to-be, with the women on site treating Ursa as a goddess--and the children being horrifically neglected as the women enjoy proximity highs when Ursa time-travels. The time travel itself is fascinating. A precious few in the story have the ability, and the power can be used for good (reminiscing, reliving beloved moments, spending moments with those lost to us) or evil (creating a whirlwind of negative feeling that shapes others' actions in significant ways). I loved the father-daughter bond, and Opal is a wonderfully quirky, self-possessed young person. The ending to this often-dark book is satisfying as well. Please click here for my full review of Time's Mouth. 05 World Running Down by Al Hess Hess's dystopian Utah relies on AI, robots, and the growing, stark split between the haves and have-nots. Trans salvager Val is just trying to get by--but an unexpected connection changes everything. Al Hess's World Running Down tracks the adventures, challenges, unexpected meetings, and joys of a trans salvager in a futuristic, dystopian Utah. Valentine Weis is coping with body dysmorphia, and he dreams of making enough money to afford citizenship in Salt Lake City, where the privileged have access to endless food options, shelter and safety, and, most importantly to Val, surgical and medical options to aid his transition. But for now, Val is eking out an existence in the rugged city outskirts. And a typical day might involve facing mortal danger from roving pirates, cyborg animals, certain AI beings, and even his own salvaging partner Ace. Val is an underdog and fights for others who have been dismissed or taken advantage of. He's an appealing, unexpected hero, and his heartbreak and heartwarming connections were lovely to dive into. For my full review of this book, please see World Running Down. If this book sounds down your alley, you might want also to check out the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Fascinating Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels, Six More Fascinating Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels, and Six Great Stories about Robots, Humans and Alien Life, and AI. 06 Some Desperate Glory Emily Tesh Emily Tesh's debut novel is a space opera about war, duty, brainwashing, escaping limitations, and reinventing oneself--with fascinating turns of events and richly wrought characters. I just loved it. Kyr has not only trained her whole life for the day she can avenge the long-ago destruction of Earth, she was genetically bred to be exceptional at the task. But then unexpected events lead her to leave the only home she's ever known in order to try to save her brother. She realizes that the revenge fantasies that have been instilled in her since birth--along with a distrust of all nonhuman creatures--were based on lies. An oddball trio made up of Kyr, her brother's subversive genius of a friend, and a lonely alien force Kyr to reexamine all that she's ever known. Emily Tesh's Some Desperate Glory examines deep matters in a fascinating chain of events, reflections, unexpected do-overs, and fantastic character growth. I absolutely loved Tesh's writing, the scope of her work, her characters, their connections, the world-building--all of it. I'm in for alllll Emily Tesh books now. For my full review, check out Some Desperate Glory.

Ann Liang's newest young adult rom-com pits high school nemeses against each other: one relentless perfectionist and people-pleaser and her effortlessly successful classmate. But neither is as perfect as they seem...except in being perfect for each other. In Ann Liang's I Hope This Doesn't Find You, Sadie Wren is perfect...on paper. She's valedictorian, school captain, and a model student. Sadie's one vice is writing scathing, no-holds-barred email drafts. She never sends them, but crafting the furious hypothetical replies to anyone who is frustrating her is helpfully cathartic. That is, until the emails that were never meant for others' eyes are mistakenly sent out. (The reader is given several hints as to how this happened--although Sadie conveniently doesn't dig into the possibilities too deeply--and the truth is revealed late in the book.) Now everyone--from her co-captain to her teachers to her classmates--knows how shockingly blunt the "real" Sadie is. And the only one who seems to embrace her accidental show of full honesty is her longtime nemesis, Julius. This young adult story is sweet and fun; the pacing often feels somewhat slapstick and frantic--as is the relentlessly ambitious, over-the-top super-pleaser Sadie herself. The feeling settles down when she finally begins to explore her feelings for Julius in a wonderfully sweet and romantic set of exchanges that feels all too brief. The vulnerability that Sadie and Julius allow each other to see at long last was lovely. This story premise (the high-achieving senior nemeses--minus the emails) reminded me in some ways of Rachel Lynn Solomon's Today Tonight Tomorrow, a young adult story I loved. I received a digital edition of this novel courtesy of NetGalley and Scholastic Press. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I fell in love with Ann Liang's fake-dating young adult novel This Time It's Real, read it in one rainy afternoon, and included it in my Greedy Reading Lists Six of My Favorite Light Fiction Reads from the Past Year, Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, and My Bossy Favorite Reads of Summer the year I read it.

I didn't feel drawn into this novel of the horrifying serial killing of children of color in a small Virginia community and the emotionally closed-off former FBI agent and current police chief trying to solve the mystery. Titus didn’t have the heart to tell Darlene that no one told anyone all their secrets. Even the people we loved kept pieces of themselves hidden away from the light. Titus Crown, former FBI agent, has returned to his hometown in Charon County, Virginia, to serve as the first Black sheriff in history. But Titus is facing challenges beyond the effects of generations of racism in his small Southern community. There's a killer in their midst, and Titus and his small team are struggling to keep up--to track evidence, attempt to piece together potential motivations for crimes, try to pinpoint who's at fault--and keep Charon citizens safe as they investigate. The crimes at hand here are horrifying, truly the stuff nightmares are made of: serial killing and graphic brutality, centering around children of color, with mental illness, past abuse, and hatred at the heart of the one(s) causing the devastation. Around these horrors, Cosby introduces a framework of fascinating issues--racism, abuse, shame, emotional vulnerability, and ingrained small-town dynamics. Yet for me, the story doesn't follow any of these avenues to a deeper place. The plot highlights the abhorrent goings-on, past and present, but the story bustles along without digging into the intriguing layers any of these topics allowed for. In the absence of those explorations, I was hoping to get to know Titus better. Titus's past is alluded to, but this is shared in a drunken moment and not delved into very deeply. Titus remains emotionally closed off throughout the book, including from the reader, and while I was glad for the promise of the book's ending for him, I didn't feel particularly invested in it. The fact that Titus didn't call in bigger guns to investigate the many complicated angles of the crimes--it felt particularly urgent to stop the current-day killing--was necessary for the story, yet throughout, this seemed strange to me. There is talk late in the story of bringing in reinforcements with more resources, but because of investigative developments (which come only after additional people are killed), this doesn't come to pass. I listened to All the Sinners Bleed as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? S. A. Cosby is also the author of Razorblade Tears, a book I listed on my Greedy Reading List Six Satisfying Novels about Revenge, as well as Blacktop Wasteland.

Lex Croucher's queer medieval rom-com--the author's debut young-adult novel--is an absolute gem; it's full of excellent banter and lots of heart. I smiled while reading this one. “Nobody else is ever going to care as much as you do about the things that you want, Gwendoline. So it's up to you --you can put them aside forever, if you can live with that, or you can put on your big-girl girdle and demand more for yourself.” It's hundreds of years after King Arthur's reign, and his descendant and namesake Arthur, a future lord and committed partier and social butterfly, has long been betrothed to the short-tempered princess Gwendoline. Gwendoline has strong opinions and is feeling constricted in her prescribed royal role even without the weight of her pending marriage upon her. But Gwendoline and Arthur detest each other. And when they're forced to spend the summer together at Camelot to prepare for their upcoming nuptials, it doesn't take long for them to realize that Art has been kissing a boy and that Gwen has a crush on the only female knight in the kingdom. They would make better allies than enemies, and as they agree to cover for each other amid sword-fighting, royal court goings-on, and romantic dramas, they forge a friendship that just might last. The premise of Lex Croucher's Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is irresistible, the pacing is great, and the banter is excellent--funny dialogue is a favorite element of mine. I adored the voices of the characters and witnessing their growth over the course of the story. I just loved the redefining of class-driven limitations (as with the attraction between Gwen's lady's maid and Arthur's right-hand-man); the unorthodox and touching loyalty within a reimagined Gwen-Arthur relationship; and the LGBTQ-positive, actively reinvented possibilities for the royals. This didn't feel strictly young adult to me, although it's certainly romantic without being explicit regarding scenes of attraction and expressions of love. The story deals with issues of identity, showing resolve in the face of strict societal expectations, and redefining relationships and traditional roles. I received a digital edition of this title courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Lex Croucher is also the author of Infamous, Reputation, Trouble, the upcoming Not for the Faint of Heart, and other books.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Eilish Quin's upcoming debut, a retelling of the story of the most despised witch in Greek mythology, Medea; I'm listening to S. A. Cosby's Southern small-town murder mystery, All the Sinners Bleed; and I'm reading The Night Tiger author Yangsze Choo's upcoming title, The Fox Wife. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Medea by Eilish Quin The witch Medea may be the most despised and reviled figure in Greek mythology. She killed her own children in order to exact revenge against Jason, leader of the Argonauts, who deceived her. But what if that isn't the whole story of Medea, the daughter of a sea nymph and granddaughter of a Titan? Powerful with divine blood, yet largely powerless because she is a woman, Medea is full of contradictions. Destined to marry the hero Jason, she puts her fate in his faulted hands. I'm reading a prepublication digital edition of Medea, Eilish Quin's debut novel, which is scheduled for publication February 13, courtesy of NetGalley and Atria Books. 02 All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby Titus didn’t have the heart to tell Darlene that no one told anyone all their secrets. Even the people we loved kept pieces of themselves hidden away from the light. Titus Crown, former FBI agent, has returned to his hometown in Charon County, Virginia, to serve as the first Black sheriff in history. But Titus is facing challenges beyond the obvious--like the effects of generations of racism in his small Southern community. There's a killer in their midst, and Titus and his small team are struggling to keep up--to track evidence, attempt to piece together potential motivations for crimes, try to pinpoint who's at fault--and keep Charon citizens safe as they investigate. I'm listening to All the Sinners Bleed as an audiobook. S. A. Cosby is also the author of Razorblade Tears, a book I listed on my Greedy Reading List Six Satisfying Novels about Revenge, as well as Blacktop Wasteland. 03 The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo It's 1908 in Manchuria, and a courtesan is found dead, frozen in a doorway. Meanwhile, rumors abound of foxes, which are believed to have the magical ability to transform into beautiful men and women. Bao, a detective set on uncovering the mystery of the woman's identity and death, has long been fascinated by the elusive fox gods--and he feels tantalizingly close to making contact with them for the first time. Meanwhile a family whose sons all seem cursed to die before their twenty-fourth birthdays has its luck begin to change when a new servant, Snow, arrives. But Snow is hunting the killer of her child, and Snow and Bao will travel through China and Japan on their quests for the truth. I received a prepublication digital edition of this title, scheduled for publication February 13, courtesy of NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company. Choo is also the author of The Night Tiger, a title I listed in my Greedy Reading List Six Historical Fiction Mysteries to Intrigue You.

Six More Bossy Favorite Reads I've been posting lists of some of my favorite reads of last year by genre; for my all-around favorites, check out My Very Favorite Bossy 2023 Reads. This list is made up of more fiction I've loved, whether quirky, poignant, or attention-grabbing. If you've read any of these titles, I'd love to hear what you think! I'd also love to hear: what are some of your favorite reads, whether you loved them last year or more recently? 01 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan Keegan's slim book may seem cozy and quiet at first, but she beautifully illuminates tiny moments alongside momentous decisions and explores how together, they form a person and make up a whole life. When Bill, a good-hearted coal merchant, discovers something shocking while making his regular delivery to the local convent, he must decide whether to carry on his way or to consider the uncomfortable implications of the Catholic church's deep influence on the community. Similarly, when he stumbles onto a truth about his own mysterious heritage--a mystery he felt he had made peace with--he must decide whether it changes his feelings about his childhood and his identity. The two issues are intertwined, and it's a joy to watch the manner in which Bill copes with both instances. The story comes alive through the little moments Keegan highlights; while she explores decisions often determined by instinctual black-and-white, right-and-wrong judgments, she also digs into the intense struggle involved in reaching out from comfortable safety and taking a risk in order to do what feels right. Keegan takes the small moments, impulses, generosities, omissions, and aversions that make up a day, a week, and a month and lays them alongside Big Moments of Realization--which often require grace and forgiveness, other times action and defiance--and with all of this in hand, she paints a picture full of the nuances choices, self-reflection, and possibilities that form the basis of a life. Please click here for my full review of Small Things Like These. Keegan is also the author of the short story collection Antarctica and the novel Foster, which was one of my all-around favorite reads last year. 02 Tom Lake by Ann Patchett Patchett's Tom Lake is a heartwarming, poignant Covid-era bonding session between a mother and her three grown daughters as Lara recounts the surprisingly layered story of her youthful romance with an actor who later became famous. In Ann Patchett's novel Tom Lake, Lara's three young-adult daughters reunite at the family's Northern Michigan orchard. Covid-19 has struck, and the family is experiencing more togetherness than they ever thought they'd have again. Lara, her husband Joe, and the girls work feverishly to harvest the cherry crop without the usual support of workers due to the virus, and to make the time pass, the girls beg Lara to share the story of her youthful romance and acting job alongside the then-unknown, later-famous Peter Duke at the theater company Tom Lake. But when Lara shares aspects of a life lived before her children existed, her daughters are led to consider their own paths and choices, as well as life's twists and turns, evolving dreams and desires, their relationship with their mother, and their parents' bond. All of the characters seem affected by the truths that emerge in Lara's telling about Lara herself, Duke, her young life, her path to her husband Joe, and the unexpected ways her future shifted and changed. For my full review, please see Tom Lake. 03 Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto Sutanto's Vera Wong is playful, brusque, bossy, and connects an unlikely cast of characters, all murder suspects, into a heartwarming friendship that feels like family. Vera Wong is running a largely unvisited tea house, lamenting her grown son's lack of time for her, and grumbling about the new "French" bakery that's just opened down the street in Chinatown. When a dead body shows up in her tea house, Vera takes charge of the investigation of what only she is certain is a murder. Marshall, the deceased, was a petty, obnoxious, verbally abusive, selfish, belittling jackass. As the truth comes out about Marshall's activities and his final evening, it becomes clear that each character has a possible motivation for having offed Marshall, so to Vera, each is a potential killer. She throws dinner parties and facilitates get-together to study her subjects. And along the way, Vera's brusque truth-telling inspires an unlikely group of friends to form a special bond that's more like that of a family. This was absolutely my favorite part of the book. This was a fast read (listen), and while the denouement didn't completely hold together for me and the loose ends were tied up with extreeeeeemely tidy bows, the story was really about the relationships and Vera's coming into her own, and I adored these aspects. Click here for my full review of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. 04 North Woods by Daniel Mason Mason's novel isn't simply a historical fiction story linked through timelines. The book builds to be an often-sinister, Gothic-feeling story with various interconnected repercussions, discoveries, and punishments; ghosts able to enact revenge; and, in the end, for select characters, a surprising and hopeful opportunity for a new start. Mason's newest novel tells the story of a New England house in the woods by tracking those who live in it over the centuries. But North Woods isn't a charming historical fiction novel. While Mason's various timelines and myriad inhabitants show the interconnectedness of us all and celebrate the wonders of the wild world surrounding us, they do so with a significant, dark undercurrent that grows in prominence as the story progresses. North Woods explores cycles of nature and human behavior. The tone is spooky and the story moves at a measured pace. I was interested in the ultimate connections and outcomes and I appreciated the story and particularly Mason's gorgeous writing (the final chapter is a particular knockout), but I did take a long time to get through this one. Click here for my full review of North Woods. 05 Big Swiss by Jen Beagin Jen Beagin's literary fiction novel is consistently bizarre, at times base, and often darkly funny as her characters alternately dive into and avoid facing the implications of their past traumas, stunted emotional states, vulnerabilities, lies, and sexual exploration. Greta sits in her 1700s Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York transcribing sessions for a local New Age sex coach (his credentials are suspect) who calls himself Om. She begins to fall for a stoic female client Greta affectionately thinks of as Big Swiss (Greta gathers from Om's awkwardly admiring chatter that the client is tall and originally from Switzerland). When Greta recognizes Big Swiss's voice at the dog park and the two accidentally meet, Greta panics and lies about her name and her profession, and the two begin a passionate affair. The dialogue is witty, odd, and often both cringe-inducing and darkly funny. Some of the metaphors felt heavily hammered home, but I didn't mind. I was intrigued by the intersection of the women's personalities and lives, and Beagin kept me consistently hooked with this offbeat novel. Click here for my full review of Big Swiss. 06 A Quiet Life by Ethan Joella Joella's lovely exploration of three characters' loss and grief allows for deep human connection, the forging of messy paths forward, and unlikely, powerful sparks of hope within their interconnected lives. Maybe that is love. Maybe loving someone so deeply means accepting the fact that they occupy a specific, clear place in you. You accept that there will be a hole if you lose them- the same way a painting or a photograph will leave its shadows on the wall after it's gone, the way a tree will leave a crater where the roots and stump were. A Quiet Life centers around three characters, their unlikely connections, and their growing importance to each other over the course of a winter in a suburban community. Through the very different but interconnected storylines and the varied, complicated set of characters' influences and motivations, Joella explores the crushing blow of grief, the power of human caring, and unlikely avenues that seem to lead toward hope. A Quiet Life was lovely and heartwarming but didn't feel too easy and was never cloying. Please click here for my full review of A Quiet Life.

System Collapse provides more of SecUnit's emotional coping with PTSD than action, and I missed the faster pacing of other books, but I love being in SecUnit's world again. Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse. In System Collapse, we catch up with the delightfully grumpy Murderbot (SecUnit), who in this seventh book in the series is faced with attempting to rescue, along with a team of humans, the inhabitants of a newly colonized planet. These colonists are in danger from an unethical corporation that's out to take advantage of and force labor from them. At the end of the last book, Fugitive Telemetry, SecUnit almost died. This story picks up immediately after those events, alluding to various ongoing emotional impacts and SecUnit system glitches that are linked to that trauma, which feels like Murderbot PTSD. Because of all of this, SecUnit isn't working as it should, despite ART's best attempts at repairing it and the Preservation Station human allies' work at trying to figure out the problem. (I didn't feel as connected to the human team here as in other Murderbot books--and I always miss Mensah when she is not present.) I love being back in the middle of the deep, irritation-filled, intensely loyal SecUnit and ART friendship and a Wells Murderbot story. I haven't read a Murderbot book in two and a half years, but the slow build here made it difficult for me to dive in, and the extended parenthetical sections (a structure familiar from other books) felt like they were bogging down the story. Frequent "redacted" notes and abruptly ended thoughts added to my inability to feel like I had a handle on and investment in the story. I loved the concept of SecUnit's exploring emotions (Murderbot emotions!) and trying to come to terms with its near-death experience, yet the page time spent on insecurity, fear, and facing past trauma is one reason the pacing of System Collapse felt quite slow to me until the final sections. The end section of the story involves fast-paced reactions and conflicts, with SecUnit doing its thing--revising plans, providing limitless human protection, and taking unorthodox approaches--to wonderful effect. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? You can click here to find my Bossy reviews of Murderbot books 1 through 3, book 4, Exit Strategy, book 5, Network Effect, as well as book 6, Fugitive Telemetry.

In Beautyland, Bertino offers a poignant, funny, strange story full of extraterrestrial observations of humans and their behavior that ring true. This was odd and lovely. Adina is born on Earth just as Voyager 1 launches into space. Her mother is a street-smart, scrabbling single parent, while Adina is an unusually perceptive child--with knowledge of another planet, a vivid nighttime school she attends in her mind, and faraway extraterrestrial relatives who have asked for her observations about humans and life on earth--which she provides by sending them her reflections through an otherworldly fax machine. Adina feels like an outsider in the world looking in, and when she attempts to share her extraterrestrial status with a few trusted people over the course of the book, reactions range from concern about Adina's mental health to benignly agreeable "we all feel like outcasts" replies. She maintains a best friend from childhood who talks Adina into publishing a book of her brief yet powerful outsider's reflections on human life, its wonders, its confusing contradictions, and complicated emotional states. The book becomes a polarizing work, with many responding positively to Adina's perspective and others fearful, irritated, or bent on revealing Adina as a liar. Meanwhile the reader is privy to Adina's many missives to her extraterrestrial family--and their often-terse replies to her. She feels caught between existences, and the book pulls to a powerful but understated end in which this push and pull is resolved. I found myself torn throughout reading this; was Adina a character struggling with mental illness and imagining her superiors' replies, or was she truly an alien in a human "shell"? I believed in the latter, but establishing the definitive truth of the situation didn't ultimately matter deeply to me: Adina's eyes offered a beautiful, odd, lovely peek at human behavior, and her observations were just wonderful. Beautyland is strange, poignant, and funny. I adore a book in which an outsider peers objectively at the absurdities of human life as in Bertino's story. In that respect, this book reminded me of Matt Haig's The Humans, another book I loved. The title comes from the name of a cosmetics store that Adina and her mother frequent in Adina's youth, as her mom seeks budget beauty magic and searches for her signature scent. Later in the book Adina visits a revamped Beautyland as an adult, and the large store offering "beauty" is both familiar and foreign to her. I listened to Beautyland as an audiobook, narrated by Andi Arndt, courtesy of Libro.fm and Dreamscape Media. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Marie-Helene Bertino is also the author of Parakeet. If you like this book, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Robots, Humans and Alien Life, and AI.

I loved each of the story's two timelines--following a stewardess on board The Titanic as well as a British spy working with the WWII French Resistance--and the details of life in each time, but I found the ending's resolutions too easy. First, just look at this gorgeous cover! I love this so much. Unsinkable is historical fiction by Jenni L. Walsh that's set in two timelines. The book's past timeline is set in the early 20th century, as Violet, a young ship's stewardess bent on providing for her family after her father's death and mother's onset of illness, works aboard ships including, as the story sweeps along, The Titanic. I love a ship-life story, and I was taken with the details of Violet's caring for the elite passengers. The story's later timeline takes place in the time of World War II as Daphne, an intelligent and educated young woman who is emotionally closed off and desperately trying to impress her estranged, famous father, serves as a spy assisting the French Resistance. Sometimes in a dual-timeline story I feel far more invested in one story or the other. But while reading Unsinkable, I was equally interested in both timelines. I really enjoyed Violet's life on the ship and her foray into nursing, as well as Daphne's spy activity. The book is almost at its close by the time the two main protagonists are explicitly linked within the story, although the reader will know of their bond before the women themselves do. For me, this was a four-star read with a three-star ending. Throughout Unsinkable, Daphne and Violet fought through unimaginable difficulties, focused on their duties at the expense of their romantic happiness, witnessed various horrors, and yet recognized and cultivated an unlikely spark of hope for themselves and their futures that felt hard-won and intriguing. The final scenes felt oddly clean and neatly wrapped up with a bow as though according to a formulaic "happy ending" equation, and I found this shift from the appealingly messy, imperfect, wonderful, adventurous, tragic lives shown in the bulk of the book to a smooth, no-loose-ends set of outlandish coincidences and resolutions jarring rather than wholly satisfying. The Author's Note explains that the character of Violet and the arc of her life is somewhat loosely based upon a real person, while Daphne is an amalgamation of various special operations figures. I listened to Unsinkable as an audiobook, narrated by Barrie Kreinik and Alana Kerr Collins, courtesy of Libro.fm and Harper Muse. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Walsh is also the author of Becoming Bonnie, Side by Side, A Betting Woman, and The Call of the Wrens. You might like my Bossy reviews of other spy stories; you can find them here.

book The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to a wonderfully strange story about the absurdity of human life, Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino; I'm reading the upcoming debut novel by Kelly Link about three teenagers who disappeared, died, and are given the chance to reclaim versions of their lives using competitive magical tasks, The Book of Love; and I'm listening to a historical fiction story in two timelines, one on The Titanic and one centering around a female spy in World War II, Unsinkable. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino Adina is born on Earth just as Voyager 1 launches into space. Her mother is a street-smart, scrabbling single parent, while Adina is an unusually perceptive child--with knowledge of another planet, a vivid nighttime school she attends in her mind, and faraway extraterrestrial relatives who have asked for her observations about humans and life on earth--which she does by sending them faxes of her reflections. Beautyland is strange, poignant, and funny. I adore a book in which an outsider peers objectively at the absurdities of human life as in Bertino's story. I'm listening to Beautyland as an audiobook, narrated by Andi Arndt, courtesy of Libro.fm and Dreamscape Media. 02 The Book of Love by Kelly Link In Kelly Link's debut novel, The Book of Love, teenagers Mo, Daniel, and Laura tragically disappeared from their hometown and were presumed dead. One year later, they find themselves sitting in a fluorescent-lit classroom in their seaside town of Lovesend, Massachusetts, with their high school music teacher before them. They are, in fact, dead, but their teacher offers them a chance to compete in magical tasks in order to reclaim their lives. Meanwhile, mysterious forces with dangerous plans converge upon Lovesend, drawn by the resurrection of the kids. The teens are trying to come to terms with what their existences might look like now, and their families are still reeling from their loss. The kids will need to figure out the reasons for their disappearance--and their return--if there's any hope of a future for them. I received a prepublication edition of this book, scheduled for publication February 13, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. 03 Unsinkable by Jenni L. Walsh Unsinkable is historical fiction set in two timelines by Jenni L. Walsh. The book's earlier timeline is set in the early 20th century, as Violet, a young ship's steward bent on providing for her family, works aboard The Titanic, while the later timeline takes place in the time of World War II as Daphne, an intelligent and educated young woman who is emotionally closed off, serves as a spy assisting the French Resistance. I'm listening to Unsinkable as an audiobook, narrated by Barrie Kreinik and Alana Kerr Collins, courtesy of Libro.fm and Harper Muse. Walsh is also the author of Becoming Bonnie, Side by Side, A Betting Woman, and The Call of the Wrens.

My very favorite Bossy January reads! Here are the six books I most loved reading this past month: a beautiful, poignant nonfiction book about living and dying; a science fiction story about an inherited villain's career, heavily featuring savvy and communicative cats; a historical fiction novel featuring female doctors, set in 15th century China; a gothic, magical-realism Western; a historical fiction escape through the wilderness, set in the time of early Jamestown; and a steampunk-Nordic novel about a dragon school, Indigenous peoples, constricting rules, and the possibility of upending tradition in favor of reinvention. If you've read any of these titles, I'd love to hear what you think! I hope you've stayed healthy and had a happy break! And I'd also love to hear: what are some of your recent favorite reads? 01 Being Mortal by Atul Gawande Atul Gawande writes clearly and poignantly about the search to achieve maximum well-being rather than prolonging diminished life at all costs--as well as the many complicating factors that make it difficult to transition to a focus on quality of life. We've been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way. The past century of medical advancements have transformed some grave conditions from death sentences to manageable or curable illnesses. But the focus on living longer and attempting to move past former limitations of medical solutions sometimes create a difficult dynamic: pursuing additional years of life at any cost sometimes means paying the price by experiencing a dramatically diminished quality of life. In Being Mortal, surgeon, former Harvard professor, and public health leader (Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID) Atul Gawande explores the successes and failures of the medical field in prolonging a life worth living. Being Mortal is a beautiful, poignant, clearheaded examination of the intersection of mortality, medicine, dreams, and reality. Gawande emphasizes asking key questions of loved ones to clearly understand their own particular, sometimes surprising lines in the sand regarding quality of life before they are unable to make key decisions for themselves: what are they willing to forgo in order to live? If you're interested in books about mortality like I am, you might like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality and Six More Powerful Books about Facing Mortality. For my full review of this book, please see Being Mortal. 02 Starter Villain by John Scalzi First: this amazing cover. Second: Starter Villain is playful, darkly funny, big-hearted, and wonderfully weird. I loved it and I can't wait to read more John Scalzi books. “I can’t tell if you’re joking with me,” I said. “I’m mostly joking with you.” “That ‘mostly’ is doing a lot of work in that sentence.” The cover of Starter Villain shows a grumpy-seeming cat's head on a human torso clad in a suit with "Meet the new boss" across the top, so obviously this was going to be a Bossy read. And I love that this is my first review of 2024. Bring on the weird and wonderful books! In Starter Villain, Charlie's a substitute teacher, divorced, struggling emotionally, socially, and financially, and living in a house his half-siblings want to sell. Then he inherits his long-lost uncle's parking-garage empire. Which turns out to be a cover for a vast supervillain business--complete with an evil lair in an island volcano. Could this be an unexpected new start that will point Charlie in a productive new direction? The recently deceased Uncle Jake, an old-fashioned villain, made a lot of enemies--and they're ruthless, well-funded, and out for revenge. Charlie will have to quickly get up to speed and figure out friend from foe in order to stay alive. This villain business is more complicated than it seems. There's crossing, double-crossing, a wonderfully savvy and knowledgeable second-in-command, nefarious plots, sentient cats, and more. This was playful, smart, funny, and weird. Click here for my full review of Starter Villain. 03 Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See Lisa See offers a vivid peek at the lives of women in 15th century China, complete with a fascinating female-doctor element that kept me captivated. No mud, no lotus. Lady Tan's Circle of Women was my first book club read of 2024, and wow, does this one start off with a bang. Full-force details of foot-binding, and See doesn't stint on the page time spent on the topic. Whew! Tan Yunxian's grandmother is one of only a few female doctors in 15th century China, and Yunxian is learning all she can from her beloved family matriarch. See presents Yunxian as a feminist in many ways, but doesn't allow her to feel more modern than might seem plausible. She resists some of the constraints put upon her, particularly those credited to tradition rather than wisdom, yet she feels authentically of this time period. I love a female-doctor and medical storyline, and I was particularly captivated by that aspect of Lady Tan, including the treatments, techniques, and beliefs that feel of the time period at hand. I listened to this as an audiobook. Click here for my full review of Lady Tan's Circle of Women. 04 Lone Women by Victor LaValle LaValle mixes a Western setting with strong feminist messages, magical realism, haunting elements, and the terrifying, freeing truth in facing one's darker side. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who live with shame, and those who die from it. Victor LaValle's Lone Women begins in 1915 with a determined young woman, Adelaide Henry, covering her tracks by burning down her home--with her deceased parents inside. She's packed an incredibly heavy trunk and is setting out from California on a journey to try and leave her past behind. She's set on becoming a homesteader in Montana, one of the "lone women" taking the government up on its offer of free land. In LaValle's magical, dark Western, people tend to disappear whenever Adelaide's mysterious trunk opens. But the nature of the danger only becomes clear to the reader in fits and starts. There's a ton to unpack here, including the exploration of the good and evil warring within each of us; what we do when faced with our own monsters; the terrifying power of perception and manipulated presentation; the potential destruction of lies and glossed-over realities; instances of well-deserved, sometimes brutal justice and the grace of redemption; and the depth of love in a chosen family. I've seen Lone Women listed as a horror book, and there are horrifying elements, but the novel is far more than that; the story is complex and strange and interesting, with a pace that keeps moving and a satisfying ending. I listened to this fascinating story as an audiobook. Please click here for my full review of Lone Women. 05 The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff Lauren Groff's beautiful and brutal novel The Vaster Wilds follows a young servant girl running from the Jamestown colony's disease and starvation; she reveals her secrets while scrabbling for survival in the unforgiving wilderness. The world, the girl knew, was worse than savage, the world was unmoved. It did not care, it could not care, what happened to her, not one bit. She was a mote, a speck, a floating windborne fleck of dust. Lauren Goff's novel The Vaster Wilds begins in the Jamestown colony in the early 1600s. A servant girl is fleeing her early colonial household in the brutal aftermath of plague and starvation. Upon being on her own for the first time, she discovers that she is capable of cleverness in the wild as she dives deeper and deeper into the unforgiving wilderness. She manages to problem-solve enormous challenges and, against all odds, survive. Her life in the wild consists of scrabbling for sustenance and carving out shelter; floating deadly cold rivers; and fleeing from wild strangers and beasts. Hers is a brutal existence buoyed only by meandering thoughts of the past--including her life's one tender connection, to the young daughter of her former household, her former charge--and her growing wonder at the mysteries of the natural world, which are wonderfully imperfect and beautifully wrought by Groff. I listened to The Vaster Wilds as an audiobook. For my full review, check out The Vaster Wilds. 06 To Shape a Dragon's Breath (Nampeshiweisit #1) by Moniquill Blackgoose Blackgoose offers a fascinating, layered story about a strong-willed, whip-smart young Indigenous woman in a steampunk 1800s Nordic setting, with plenty of dragons, dragon science, and dragon bonding alongside activism and bravery. Moniquill Blackgoose's To Shape a Dragon's Breath delivers the dragons: in-depth training around being partnered with dragons, dragon-related science, emotional and physical ties to dragons, and the cultural importance, historical significance, and potential power of being linked to dragons, It's also a steampunk, mid-1800s Nordic setting for some radical rethinking of nonsensical, destructive rules and regulations. A fifteen-year-old Indigenous Masquisit girl Anequs finds a dragon egg, and when it hatches, she befriends and bonds with the hatchling, Kasaqua. But the Anglish conquerers of Masquapaug insist that a dragon must be raised a certain way, and if Anequs fails to demonstrate that she can control and shape Kasaqua's behavior, the dragon will be killed. But everyone's about to find out how disruptive a whip-smart, open-minded, and strong-willed young woman can be. Because the restrictive Anglish world--and its selective history of the destruction of the Indigenous people--is due for some changes. And Anequs is just the fearless catalyst who might be able to shift it all. Blackgoose takes on issues of Indigenous people and colonization, wealth and privilege, gender power imbalances, nontraditional sexual and relationship conventions, the bucking of societal traditions, and more. And my thirst for boarding school/magical school settings was quenched by the feminist-activist Anequs's dragon academy experience. For my full review, please see To Shape a Dragon's Breath. I love books about dragons (check out some of my favorites).

ICYMI: This is an irresistible story and set of characters, but with fascinating depth. The issues Reid explores are enormous and are important to all of us, every day, and she wraps them in an immensely readable work of fiction. I just loved it. Such a Fun Age centers around a young Black babysitter, her employer, and the complicated nature of their transactional relationship. Reid questions: How much do our assumptions about race, power, intentions, and desires affect our selves, our relationships, or our society? How much of what we consider fact and truth is skewed by our histories, our prejudices, our privilege or hardship, or our inability to face uncomfortable realities? Emira is drifting in a familiar twentysomething way, yet on each page of the story she also cements her sense of self and what she wants, which is so satisfying to watch. I loved her dialogue anytime someone needed a talking-to. She’s clearheaded and badass and loving and wonderful. Alix and her friends were tough for me to take for most of the book, yet Reid did make me feel some sympathy for her lack of self-awareness and her blunders. It feels notable that her frequent missteps (disastrous high school past, misrepresentation of where she lives, lack of promised book pages, husband’s racially insensitive comment on tv, small-minded pettiness and obsession with weight, looks, and past wrongs, etc.) don’t negatively affect her life for the vast majority of instances. Emira and Briar are two of the best characters I’ve read in ages. I wasn’t totally hooked by the ending but really wasn’t going to be fully satisfied without an endless Emira-Briar lovefest. Side note: I’d love a spinoff in the form of an alternate reality series in which they have adventures together for the rest of their lives. ❤️ I was provided with a copy of this title by Penguin Group Putnam and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Kiley Reid is also the author of Come and Get It, Complexity, and George Washington's Teeth.

Come and Get It is the story of an RA and the consequences of her actions related to privacy and safety; the book dabbles in issues of race, class, sexual identity, and loyalty, yet I found myself wanting more of an exploration of each of these aspects. In Kiley Reid's new novel Come and Get It, the author of Such a Fun Age offers a story set in 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie is an experienced RA coping with students' concerns large and small. She's got her sights set on graduating and settling down with a job and a house of her own. She's a black young woman supporting residents who are largely white, and Reid shows widespread entitled behavior but sets them in contrast to situations in which students are struggling to get by. Then Millie is offered an unusual opportunity to help a journalist and visiting professor by offering clandestine access to the private conversations of the students in her dorm. Neither allowing such access nor the nominal payments she receives for her help seem questionable to Millie, although I have to think that the RA manual that she must be deeply familiar with--and likely also at least one aspect of one of her college courses?--must have outlined some basic ideas of privacy, responsibility, and culpability. It seemed very odd that Millie--who is so focused on goals, doing her duty, behaving in a manner that's beyond reproach, and keeping her head down--didn't feel squirrelly about this setup, and that she didn't ever question the ethics or appropriateness of it. I could imagine a story scenario in which Millie compromised her morals as the situation bloated into the complications that it does: of emotional and romantic concerns, minor class and race clashes, and worries about money and the security of her future. Or that her shift in feelings of responsibility could be part of her cutting loose in areas of her personal life. But instead, the increasingly questionable activities and compromises that Millie agrees to as the story progresses are just versions of what she was willing to go along with--without asking any questions--from the very first. Her character is presented as naïve, but I felt as though she would have paused for a moment during one of her many opportunities to do so and considered the way in which the scenario might impact her important plans. Meanwhile the students under Millie's watch in the dorm are developing young-feeling (dirty dishes in the common area; spreading hurtful gossip; excluding others from invitations) yet impactful interpersonal conflicts, and Millie's growing interest in the professor distracts her so that she misses all of them, as well as their potential implications. After an unlikely moment of tragedy upends everything, each character seems to misinterpret it and also to react in unintentionally unhelpful ways (meanwhile the truth of the situation is not revealed by the one person who could do so). Millie is in danger of losing everything, and this culminating situation of neglectful, inept damage that is ultimately inflicted by practically every character seems to embody the ignorance and incompetence displayed by almost everyone in the book. The banter between Millie's two RA friends was a highlight, yet felt somewhat extraneous to the story. I was taken with how their friendship with Millie was ultimately threatened not by the realities of the secrets Millie was keeping, but by the fact that she kept secret her deepest desires and dreams from those she was meant to trust. The title of the book sets a tone that feels fast-paced, or sassy, or spirited. The tone of the book felt more measured than this, and while Reid flirts with Big Issues (race, class, exploring sexuality) in the story Come and Get It, for me, the book never fully dives into exploring them, and I felt myself wanting more. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Kiley Reid is also the author of Such a Fun Age, Complexity, and George Washington's Teeth.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading an upcoming book by a favorite author, Katherine Arden, The Warm Hands of Ghosts, a historical fiction story with magical elements; I'm reading the wonderful Ann Liang's soon-to-be-published young adult rom-com, I Hope This Doesn't Find You; and I'm listening to a historical fiction mystery based on a real-life 18th-century Maine midwife, Martha Ballard, The Frozen River. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden Armageddon was a fire in the harbor, a box delivered on a cold day. It wasn't one great tragedy, but ten million tiny ones, and everyone faced theirs alone. I loooooved the mix of vivid historical setting and magical elements in Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy (see links to my rave reviews below). So I'm excited to read her upcoming book The Warm Hands of Ghosts, scheduled for publication February 13. In The Warm Hands of Ghosts, Arden sets a story of Laura, a combat nurse, who is searching for her brother Freddie, against the backdrop of the Great War. Freddie is reported as having died, but strange and unnerving clues indicate to Laura that something more mysterious may have happened to him. Arden is also the author of the Winternight trilogy, which I loved: The Bear and the Nightingale, The Girl in the Tower, and The Winter of the Witch. I mentioned these books in the Greedy Reading Lists Six Wonderfully Witchy Stories and Six More Wonderfully Witchy Stories to Charm You. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group--Ballantine, Del Rey. 02 I Hope This Doesn't Find You by Ann Liang I fell in love with Ann Liang's fake-dating young adult novel This Time It's Real, read it in one rainy afternoon, and included it in my Greedy Reading Lists Six of My Favorite Light Fiction Reads from the Past Year, Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, and My Bossy Favorite Reads of Summer the year I read it. In Liang's upcoming I Hope This Doesn't Find You, Sadie Wren is perfect...on paper. She's valedictorian, school captain, and model student. Sadie's one vice is writing scathing, no-holds-barred email drafts. She never sends them, but crafting the furious hypothetical replies to anyoe frustrating her in the world is helpfully cathartic. That is, until the emails that were never meant for others' eyes are mistakenly sent out. Now everyone--from her co-captain to her teachers to her classmates--knows how shockingly blunt the "real" Sadie is. And the only one who seems to embrace her accidental show of full honesty is her nemesis, Julius. I received a prepublication edition of this book, scheduled for publication February 6, courtesy of NetGalley and Scholastic Press. 03 The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon Historical fiction? Check. Maine setting? Check. Female character in the medical profession? Check. Cold setting for a cold winter read? Check! The Frozen River ticks so many Bossy boxes, I knew this one had to zip to the top of my to-read list. Lawhon's novel is based upon the real-life figure of Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife who defied convention--and, in Lawhon's story, the law. It's 1789, and in a rural Maine community, a local man turns up dead--frozen into the river. Many aren't sad to find that he is no longer a belligerent threat in town. But he had been charged with involvement in the rape of one of Martha's best friends, and now the sole living man accused of the rape is one of the town's most respected figures--as well as its judge. I'm listening to The Frozen River as an audiobook, narrated by Jane Oppenheimer, courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House. If you like the sounds of this book, you might also want to check out the titles on the Greedy Reading List Six Books with Cold, Wintry Settings to Read by the Fire.

Are you intrigued by reflections on life and death? This is a departure from many of my other Greedy Reading Lists: witchy books, young adult favorites, or gifty book ideas, for example. But I find a memoir about facing mortality fascinating. We're all headed toward the same end in this life, after all, and those brave enough to commit their feelings, experiences, fears, thoughts, and even joy to paper when their death is imminent seem to lay bare the true roots of the human experience. It seems inevitable that the reflections of someone facing death might lead a reader to consider their own life and how they choose to live it. Other books on my to-read list that loosely fit within this category include: If you like memoirs, you might like the books I list on these Greedy Reading Lists: Six Illuminating Memoirs to Dive Into and Six Illuminating Memoirs I've Read This Year (last year). Have you read books in this vein that you'd recommend? 01 The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams In Yip-Williams's memoir, the subtitle of which is A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After, she candidly shares the many heartbreaking aspects of facing her own imminent death from metastatic colorectal cancer. Yip-Williams is a beautiful, intelligent writer who reflects deeply on life and on her situation. The Unwinding of the Miracle serves as her powerful farewell to her family but is also meaningful for anyone considering the way they live and how they might choose to face their own mortality. The details of Yip-Williams’s childhood and the obstacles she overcame to simply be alive as an adult to face this sobering reality are incredible. But she is truly amazing in the way she honestly recounts her fury and panic, her excruciating treatments and effects, her exhaustive search for new life-extending options, and her reckoning with the realization that at some point desperate hope for survival must transform somehow into an effort for grace in dying and making plans for leaving loved ones behind. 02 I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O'Farrell I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's memoir of pivotal near-death experiences that shaped her life and affected the way she considers her existence. Her recollections include a childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, an encounter with a potentially dangerous man in the vulnerable middle of nowhere, and her struggle to protect her daughter. The seventeen snapshots of O'Farrell's life at different stages highlight the frighteningly fragile nature of life. The construct of tracing near-death experiences to tell the story of her life didn’t feel forced at all, and O’Farrell’s meditations on the precious nature of life felt new, honest, raw, and fascinating. I loved this. O’Farrell’s writing is exacting but lyrical, capturing the nuances of the moments that lead to and make up sudden crises, arising challenges, and the dangers and narrow escapes that shape a life. For my full review of this book, see I Am, I Am, I Am. 03 When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi “I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.” Kalanithi, a young neurosurgeon facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, found himself with many thoughts about existence and little time left in which to consider his life and his impending death. Kalanithi makes a shocking shift from being a doctor helping terminally ill patients to being a patient with inoperable lung cancer and terminally ill himself. The author was thoughtful, intelligent, and searching for purpose, grace, and meaning in life and death--whether through studying literature, practicing medicine, loving deeply, or becoming a father. His book is rich in reflections and explorations, if too short, like his life. 04 I've Seen the End of You by W. Lee Warren Warren's book, the subtitle of which is A Neurosurgeon's Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know, made me cry on an airplane, repeatedly. Warren’s life story, both personal and professional, and his push and pull between faith and science, is complex and deep. His experiences as a neurosurgeon, in the war, with his divorce and his remarriage, his beloved blended family, and his suffering unimaginable loss all inform his explorations of doubt, resilience, hope, and joy as related to his faith. Watching his up-and-down, sometimes wonderfully messy self-discovery take shape through this book was a beautiful thing. I wondered if his answers would be too easily reached or too pat, but Warren digs deeply into the realities of doubting his faith, God, his life’s work, and his vision of an afterlife. Warren admits when he’s a mess, and he shows us the zigzag of a route he himself took through coping with tragedy, sharing that there are many opportunities to feel defeated, and that it’s natural to feel doubt and rage and disbelief in the face of enormous pain and tragedy. There was just a little bit of repetition at times, but I read an advance reader's copy, so this likely changed before publication. I received an advance copy of this book from WaterBrook and Multnomah and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 05 The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs “I am reminded of an image...that living with a terminal disease is like walking on a tightrope over an insanely scary abyss. But that living without disease is also like walking on a tightrope over an insanely scary abyss, only with some fog or cloud cover obscuring the depths a bit more--sometimes the wind blowing it off a little, sometimes a nice dense cover.” It seems crass to critique a book like this one. How can you wish for more of a synthesis of a life, more of an expression of heartbreak, more more more, when the real question is: how did Riggs manage to step back from her urgent life-and-death situation to write any of it? The Bright Hour is a North Carolina woman's thoughtful account of events, written with an aim of preserving the essential history and memories from her life for her two small boys. She wrote the book while she was dying of breast cancer. I don't believe Riggs's intention was to portray her husband as a largely unsympathetic figure, but that's how he came across to me as a reader. Her, waiting on the street in Paris while he visits his favorite bookstore but she's too sickly to climb the stairs to it; him, out for beers with friends while she's home coping--even though I know caregivers have to create well-earned breaks; and his funny but often dark humor. 06 Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler Plans are made. Plans come apart. New delights or tragedies pop up in their place. And nothing human or divine will map out this life, this life that has been more painful than I could have imagined. More beautiful than I could have imagined. Bowler, a young mother and divinity professor coping with long-term stage IV colon cancer, shares her faith, fury, despair, humor, and even joy as she faces difficult and beautiful truths about mortality--such as her family's future, which will continue even if she is gone. Bowler considers the flawed idea that all challenges are tests of character. There’s a frequent focus on the prosperity gospel—which I’d never heard named but that is familiar as being preached and pursued by some evangelical pastors and their followers, as well as the #blessed crowd. Bowler tackles this "God's reward/punishment" mindset within her personal framework of cancer treatment and the ebbing and flowing of hope for recovery. She tackles the biggest human issues with humor, and I love her voice. Bowler recently spoke at a virtual women's retreat I attended. She was gracious, funny, unassuming, and a pure delight to listen to. If you haven't listened to it yet to find this out for yourself, Bowler's podcast, Everything Happens, is wonderful.

Six More Four-Star Bossy Historical Fiction Reads Historical fiction is one of my very favorite genres to read, and I recently posted about Six Four-Star (And Up) Historical Fiction Reads I Loved Last Year; here are six more Bossy loves I read last year. Two other historical fiction books made it onto My Very Favorite Bossy 2023 Reads: Demon Copperhead and Chenneville. If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear what you think! I'd also love to hear: what are some of your favorite historical fiction reads? You can click here for other historical fiction books (and lists of favorites) I've reviewed on Bossy Bookworm. I posted last year about Six Four-Star Historical Fiction Reads I Loved Last Year, and Six More Four-Star (And Up) Historical Fiction Reads I Loved in the Past Year. 01 A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella L. Bird Isabella Bird's nonfiction account of her 1873 travels through the rugged, wondrous American West is full of her irresistible determination to discover; offers fascinating details of flora, fauna, and the people she encountered; and showcases her sparkling personality. British Isabella Bird explored the wild, rugged western United States in the late 1800s, and she journeyed the challenging terrain in shocking solo fashion. Through the vividly recounted adventures in this lively narrative nonfiction, Bird shares her many discoveries, difficulties, and wonders. The book is built from letters Bird wrote to her sister (with some key notes added after the fact), which paint an unflinching account of her own occasionally dangerous missteps, her soaring hopes and deep connection to the stark mountains, and a sometimes-scathing social commentary related to Indians, class, ecological irresponsibility, and the dramatic inspiration she finds in nature. Bird was an understated trailblazer with irresistible determination and feistiness. Her wonder-filled fascination with the flora, fauna, and characters she encounters in the west combined with her mix of no-nonsense practicality and ambitious traveling goals and incredible fortitude make for a captivating read. If you're interested in this book, you might also like the titles on my Greedy Reading List Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West and Six More Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West. For my full review of this book, please see A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. 02 Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens Claudia Cravens's story of a young brothel worker in late nineteenth-century Dodge City, Kansas, offers up a tough young heroine who makes mistakes but whose perseverance and loyalty lead her to an unorthodox life full of friends and adventure. Practical, tough sixteen-year-old Bridget arrives in 1877 Dodge City without a penny to her name or enough marketable skills to earn her keep. She begins working at the Buffalo Queen, using her bright-red hair and pure, country-girl appeal to her advantage. Then Bridget falls for a fellow "sporting woman," and when the Buffalo Queen is threatened, she must determine where her loyalties lie. Bridget is strong and no-nonsense yet also inexperienced and far from worldly. Her decision to become a prostitute is a choice between hunger and a full belly, and she isn't sentimental about sexual intimacy or about what might have been. The bedrock for Lucky Red is made up of wonderful historical fiction details of life in the dusty, volatile, lawless West. Please click here for my full review of Lucky Red. 03 Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash Beyond That, the Sea is a lovely character-driven historical fiction story about complicated relationships, found family, growing up, and balancing two lives, all set against the backdrop of World War II. She had tried, as best she could, to braid her life with theirs. She never thought then that their futures would diverge. That there would be two lines, heading in very different directions... [She was] caught between two worlds...one old England and one New. Beyond That, the Sea tells the story of two families on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. British parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make what feels like an impossible choice: to send their eleven-year-old daughter Beatrix to America for her safety. The Gregorys pull Bea into the heart of their Boston family and their New England life. Bea settles in, and soon her American family and life feel more familiar than the parents she left behind. Tragedy strikes both of her families, making Bea feel torn between the two lives she's led, each of which have without question shaped her into the person she is. The point of view frequently shifts, and many chapters are short, but I felt connected to each of the characters and thought the varied perspectives were one of the book's strengths. I loved witnessing the growth of each of the relationships in this character-driven historical fiction gem. Click here for my full review of Beyond That, the Sea. 04 Illuminations by Mary Sharratt Sharratt's carefully researched, richly detailed historical fiction is based on the life of the medieval mystic who long served as an unwilling anchorite, walled into a monastery cell. Her rise to freedom and power is built upon visions and feminism. Mary Sharratt offers an exhaustively researched, fascinating historical fiction account of the life of the 12th century mystic who later spearheaded the building of a convent and became a Benedectine abbess. Sharratt begins the book with an aged Hildegard who has emerged from the monastery cell of her childhood. Because of this structure, I was relieved to know that she ultimately escapes her forced isolation. This made it bearable to read Sharratt's account of Hildegard's claustrophobic, dark years behind a dank, damp wall--finding spots of joy and inspiration where she is able. I read Illuminations with a group of women over a period of months, and we were captivated by the details of the Middle Ages setting; the satisfying, subversive feminism Sharratt inserts throughout; and Hildegard's ability to reinvent her situation so dramatically. There's relatively little page time spent on the later years of Hildegard's life at the abbey. Mary Sharratt also wrote Revelations, historical fiction about the life of Margery of Kempe, a mother of fourteen whose radiant visions led her to stun medieval British society with her vow of celibacy and ambitious pilgrimage halfway around the world. For my full review, please check out Illuminations. 05 Go As a River by Shelley Read Read's debut novel is gorgeously written, with vivid details of mid-century Colorado, moments that change everything, impossible decision-making, heartbreak, and hope. Victoria is the last surviving female in a family of difficult men, living on a rural Colorado peach farm--its existence in that place and time a miracle and a testament to her father's creative farming and skill. Wilson Moon is a drifter displaced from his tribal lands, and a chance meeting between Wil and Victoria shifts the paths of their lives forever. Driven by instinct and survival, Victoria responds to the challenges of the wilderness, unforgiving weather, and seesawing temperatures. She realizes she must make an impossible choice--one with heartbreaking repercussions. Much of the book is about putting one foot in front of the other despite unimaginable devastation; finding the strength to go on despite few options; and the surprise of new determination and hope after years of pain and loss. Read brings Go As a River to life through the sights, sounds, and wildlife in the high Colorado forest; the grip of a farming lifestyle along the churning Gunnison River; and the rhythm of life dictated by the peach orchard. The planned-flooding aspect of the novel is based on the true story of the destruction of the town of Iola, Colorado, in the 1960s. I loved the immersive details of Victoria's life, her stalwart manner, her strength, and her perseverance. Please click here for my full review of Go As a River. 06 Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall Marshall's debut historical fiction centers around women's searches for body autonomy in three timelines of interconnected characters and their stories. Looking for Jane is a story of women living in three timelines who are linked through decades by a mysterious letter--and by enormously important, recurring dilemmas for women through the ages: unexpected pregnancies; searches (and fights) for bodily autonomy and securing their health; and weighty choices with repercussions that reverberate. In this historical fiction, Marshall explores the goings-on at 1960s unwed mothers' homes in Canada--based upon actual first-person accounts of practices, cruelties, and secrets and lies at such homes in the U.S. and Canada. The female characters' stories are deeply intertwined; I saw some of the events coming but not others, and I didn't mind predicting portions of where the story was going. Marshall sets up realistic emotional barriers for characters who have had to hide parts of themselves away; she doesn't shy away from sharing the sometimes-tragic outcomes of pregnant women's desperate searches for a say-so in their fates; and she places each story within the events and details of its timeline. Please click here for my full review of Looking for Jane.

Schwab returns to the world of the four Londons in the first of a wonderfully paced new series featuring established characters, their banter, and their in-progress stories as well as a new antagonist and a new potential hero who are both strong, fascinating young women. “If you only think of the wrong hands magic can fall into, you forget that now and then there are right ones.” The Fragile Threads of Power is set in the world of Schwab's Shades of Magic, with a return to the four Londons. The Londons are connected by magic but separated by doors, which were created in a desperate attempt to protect the magic of each world. Only a few Antari have been born in a generation, and they have long been the only ones with the power to open these doors. If you've read the Shades of Magic books, you'll already be acquainted with the fantastic characters of Kell Maresh of Red London, Delilah Bard of Grey London, and Holland Vosijk of White London. Now Kosika, a young, impressionable, fervor-driven young Antari, is taking up the mantle of the deceased Holland's rule in White London. Delilah Bard is crossing worlds to take stock of the threats and power struggles. In Red London, Kell's brother king Rhy Maresh is facing spreading resistance and assassination attempts. And then there's Tes, a crafty runaway with immense power who's just trying to keep from being noticed. Schwab does an excellent job of reinforcing characters from prior stories while introducing new ones; in this first of her new series, she weights the story more heavily toward names we already know and storylines in progress, which I found satisfying. Meanwhile, two young women, a new antagonist and a new potential hero, trickle into the story until their presences are a flood. One may upend everything across four worlds--and one may possibly be able to save them all. I loved returning to the wonderful Schwab pacing and banter and delving into the love stories already in progress--which are sweet yet barbed, full of acceptance and imperfection, and never cloying or verging on "romantasy." Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? The first two books in the Shades of Magic series are A Darker Shade of Magic and A Gathering of Shadows, each of which I gave four Bossy stars. You can check out my review of book 3, A Conjuring of Light, here.

Lauren Groff's beautiful and brutal novel The Vaster Wilds follows a young servant girl running from the Jamestown colony's disease and starvation; she reveals her secrets while scrabbling for survival in the unforgiving wilderness. The world, the girl knew, was worse than savage, the world was unmoved. It did not care, it could not care, what happened to her, not one bit. She was a mote, a speck, a floating windborne fleck of dust. Lauren Goff's novel The Vaster Wilds begins in the Jamestown colony in the early 1600s. A servant girl is fleeing her early colonial household in the brutal aftermath of plague and starvation. Our main protagonist knows she is being chased because of something she's done, but the facts of the situation aren't revealed to the reader until late in the book. (She doesn't realize, as the reader does, due to the omniscient narrator, that her pursuer succumbs to death early on, and that she is evading new dangers but has no need of pushing on to escape threats of repercussions from her household.) The orphan girl is essentially nameless--she doesn't attach to any of the insulting, ridiculing, or general names adults have carelessly thrown at her in her short life. She is uneducated but thoughtful, and she frequently considers issues of faith and life, separating these from the faulted holy men who introduced her to such concepts. She has visions of the past and of versions of the future in which her spirit transcends the pain and violence and knife-edge of death upon which she has survived. Upon being on her own for the first time, she discovers that she is capable of cleverness in the wild as she dives deeper and deeper into the unforgiving wilderness. She manages to problem-solve enormous challenges and, against all odds, survive. Her life in the wild consists of scrabbling for sustenance and carving out shelter; floating deadly cold rivers; and fleeing from wild strangers and beasts. Hers is a brutal existence buoyed only by meandering thoughts of the past--including her life's one tender connection, to the young daughter of her former household, her former charge--and her growing wonder at the mysteries of the natural world, which are wonderfully imperfect and beautifully wrought by Groff. I listened to The Vaster Wilds as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Groff is also the author of Fates and Furies, Matrix, The Monsters of Templeton, and other novels.

The Heiress is set on a North Carolina estate that's always felt claustrophobic to Cam. But his adoptive mother Ruby, an infamous character and four-time widow, was determined for him to inherit the McTavish riches. As the truths of Ruby's past become clear to the reader, additional layers of unexpected secrets begin to unfurl. When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she's North Carolina's richest woman--and its most infamous. Ruby was the victim of a childhood kidnapping that turned the community of Tavistock on its head, and since then her power has grown--as has her list of dead husbands (four). She reigns high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, on her lavish estate. But her adopted son Camden is living in Colorado with his wife in a modest rental home, teaching school, and firmly determined to reject his sizeable inheritance along with the McTavish family--who are still living in the mansion--and anything to do with Ruby. After Ruby's death, strange murmurings about her past begin to surface, and Cam is forced to face questions about inheritance, legacy, and family ties that reach beyond the grave. The story is told partially through illuminating letters from Ruby laying out the unflinching facts of her past actions. When Cam returns to North Carolina to sort out the mansion's repairs, tensions run high with his cold aunt and two outrageously behaved cousins. And it becomes clear to the reader that his estranged family and Cam's beloved wife Jules aren't the only ones keeping secrets--Cam himself has been hiding some essential truths as well. As in the other Hawkins novels I've read, the story's relationships, hidden truths, and setting feel like the main elements; character development isn't a crucial part of the story's progression. Yet I felt I was enough a part of the characters' inner circle to feel a twinge of betrayal when they revealed their secrets to readers--even if they did not always come clean to each other. The Heiress has a satisfying ending that also retains some of the story's intrigue among the main characters. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Hawkins is also the author of The Villa, Reckless Girls, and The Wife Upstairs.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Lauren Groff's newest novel about a colonial servant girl in the wilderness, The Vaster Wilds; I'm reading Emily Austin's upcoming novel about a quirky main protagonist Interesting Facts about Space; and I'm reading Kiley Reid's upcoming college-set novel dealing with race, privilege, and more, Come and Get It. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff The world, the girl knew, was worse than savage, the world was unmoved. It did not care, it could not care, what happened to her, not one bit. She was a mote, a speck, a floating windborne fleck of dust. In Lauren Goff's The Vaster Wilds, a servant girl has fled her colonial household in the brutal aftermath of plague and starvation. She discovers that she is capable of craftiness and cleverness in the wild, as she puts distance between herself and her past by diving deep into the unforgiving wilderness. She is uneducated but thoughtful and considers issues of faith and the faulted holy men who have introduced her to it; this is a brutal existence buoyed only by thoughts of the past and wonder at the mysteries of the natural world. I'm listening to The Vaster Wilds as an audiobook. Groff is also the author of Fates and Furies, Matrix, The Monsters of Templeton, and other novels. 02 Interesting Facts about Space by Emily Austin In Emily Austin's Interesting Facts about Space, Enid is obsessed with space, and she could talk all day about black holes and the universe. She loves true crime podcasts and dates a variety of women from dating apps. But she's trying to come to terms with the death of her absent father--and build relationships with her estranged half-sisters. Enid us exploring a new love interest when she becomes consumed by the idea that someone is following her. Is this a paranoia inspired by her podcast listening? Or is someone really after her? I received a prepublication edition of this book, scheduled for publication January 30, courtesy of NetGalley and Atria Books. 03 Come and Get It by Kiley Reid In Kiley Reid's upcoming novel Come and Get It, the author of Such a Fun Age offers a story set in 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie is an RA coping with students' large and small concerns. She's got her sights set on graduating and settling down with a job and a house of her own. Then Millie is offered an unusual opportunity that might allow her to achieve her goals sooner than she'd dreamed. But the side hustle is more complicated than Millie ever imagined--and the students under her watch in the dorm are making for unforeseen challenges as well. I received a prepublication edition of this book, scheduled for publication January 30, courtesy of NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam.

Six Four-Star (and Up) Bossy Historical Fiction Reads Historical fiction is one of my very favorite genres, and just as I do every year, I loved my historical fiction reads in 2023. Two historical fiction books made it onto My Very Favorite Bossy 2023 Reads: Demon Copperhead and Chenneville. If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear what you think! I'd also love to hear: what are some of your favorite historical fiction reads? You can click here for other historical fiction books (and lists of favorites) I've reviewed on Bossy Bookworm. I posted last year about Six Four-Star Historical Fiction Reads I Loved Last Year, and Six More Four-Star (And Up) Historical Fiction Reads I Loved in the Past Year. 01 The Madstone by Elizabeth Crook The Madstone begins as an against-the-odds attempt to evade evil and develops into a beautiful heartbreaker of a story about duty, family, and love in Civil War-era Texas. I will tell you, if there is a thing harder than facing danger, it's knowing it's headed your way. It's 1868 in Texas, and a stagecoach that's off track and in trouble (with a fortune tucked away inside) turns out to also hold unexpected passengers: pregnant Nell and her four-year-old son, Tot, who are fleeing from Nell's abusive husband and his vindictive, terrifying "Swamp Fox" family. When nineteen-year-old orphan and frontier carpenter Benjamin Shreve encounters Nell, he determines to shepherd her and Tot to safety. But their trip to the Gulf of Mexico is fraught with danger--and Nell's husband and his murderous brothers may be hot on their tail. The book is fully epistolary, as the story is told in a book-long letter from Benjamin to Tot. It started off a little slowly for me because Benjamin shared so many details of thoughts and in setting the scene, but I ended up loving the delivery of the story as Benjamin shares understated, thoughtful reflections and begins to express burgeoning emotions and vulnerability. I loved the Old West setting, the relationships, the unlikely allies, the high threat level, the danger and chases, the few quiet moments--all of this. If you're interested in this book, you might also like the titles on my Greedy Reading List Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West and Six More Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West. For my full review of this book, please see The Madstone. 02 October in the Earth by Olivia Hawker Hawker's historical fiction gives a wonderfully evocative peek into a gritty period, as her main protagonist escapes a bad marriage to ride the rails during the Depression and reinvents herself completely. In Depression-era Kentucky, Adella (Del) Wensley is the wife of the showy, prosperous, revered local preacher. She's learned to bite her tongue, and she feels like the poor treatment her husband shows her may be deserved, as after eight years of marriage, they haven't conceived a child. Her life's purpose is meant to be made up of motherhood, catering to her husband's needs, and keeping house, after all. But when her husband pushes her too far with abhorrent behavior, Del hops a train and dives into the transient community riding the rails in search of work and survival. Hawker offers a wonderfully vivid, gritty, sobering, often surprisingly hopeful--but never too easy--peek at Depression-era desperation, forged loyalties, shedding of expectations, and new, hard-fought identities and priorities. For my full review of this book, please see October in the Earth. 03 The Caretaker by Ron Rash Ron Rash's newest Appalachian-set novel explores a small town shaken by upended expectations, the Korean War, and selfish rigidity that threatens to undo them all. Blackburn Gant is the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery in 1951 Blowing Rock, North Carolina. He lives a quiet life, which is partially dictated by his physical limitations since suffering through polio as a child. When his best (and only) friend Jacob is sent to serve overseas in the Korean War, Blackburn promises to look after Jacob's wife, Naomi. The two had eloped just months after meeting, which led to Jacob's being disowned by his wealthy family. Blackburn and Naomi grow close as they anxiously await word of Jacob's fate halfway around the world. When an important telegram arrives, they fear the worst. A series of elaborate falsifications, outrageous subterfuge, and outright lies creates a tangled web for all involved--and the situation just begs for justice to be served to those blinded by selfish desire and rigid expectations. I included the wonderful Ron Rash short story collection Nothing Gold Can Stay in my Greedy Reading List Six Short Story Collections to Wow You, and I loved his novel One Foot in Eden. Click here for my full review of The Caretaker. 04 The Trackers by Charles Frazier Frazier offers an immersive story that morphs from a WPA-funded rural art commission to a leisurely country-wide search, an unlikely obsession, moments of brutality, strange connections, and, finally, an upended set of circumstances. In The Trackers, Cold Mountain author Charles Frazier offers historical fiction featuring a Great Depression-era painter, Val Welch, traveling west to a small rural town in Wyoming. As part of a New Deal grant, Val has landed the job of painting a mural on the Dawes, Wyoming, post office. In Dawes, he meets eccentric, wealthy art lovers John and Eve Long--mysterious, possibly hiding something, and certainly unpredictable. When Eve takes off from Dawes with a piece of valuable artwork, Val agrees to follow her--and uncovers long-buried secrets that could change everything. Frazier's writing is gorgeous, evoking the stark western landscapes Val passes through, gritty San Francisco, and the powerful cliffside ocean as well as lush, wild, wet Florida and its accompanying corruption and danger. Click here for my full review of The Trackers. 05 Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue Donoghue's captivating historical fiction centers around two real-life young women in an early 1800s British boarding school who fall into a clandestine love and break each other's hearts. Donoghue builds a rich story around the real-life figures of Eliza Raine and Anne Lister. Raine was a wealthy orphan--one of two daughters born to a white British father and an Indian mother, who were committed but unmarried--sent from India to England at age 6. She grew up in a cold, strict British boarding school in the early 1800s. Lister arrives as a wild, curious, unconventional, brilliant tomboy--and is paired as roommates with Raine in the drafty dormitory attic. It almost seems as though the school heads would like to forget either of the troublesome young ladies exist. The teenage roommates become unlikely best friends, then fall into a deep, forbidden attraction, pledging their eternal love to each other. Their romantic connection is passionate but clandestine, and they manage to evade the scandal and punishment that would befall them if their situation were made known to the conservative school administrators. It's difficult to consider Raine's mental illness without crediting the likely powerful influence of her worries about her orphaned state, her cold relationship with her sister, her lack of autonomy as a female, her financial future's reliance on her age and marital state, and the secretive nature of her desire and single close relationship--which ends in heartbreak, followed by years of prolonged angst, yearning, and continual disappointment. For my full review, check out Learned by Heart. 06 Homecoming by Kate Morton Morton's newest historical fiction involves two timelines, a decades-old tragedy, and a modern-day descendant's discovery of her family's link to mysterious deaths. "...People were wiser back then, and less selfish. They understood that they were part of a line, not the beginning, middle, and end of it." In one of Morton's timelines, it's Christmas Eve in South Australia, and a local man makes a horrific discovery on the grounds of a grand country estate. Years later, Jessica is a struggling reporter in London who is summoned to Sydney to care for her beloved grandmother Nora, who has sustained a serious fall. While there, Jessica discovers a true-crime account of The Turner Family Tragedy of 1959--and her own family's connection to the unthinkable events. There are two mysteries surrounding the Turner Tragedy: the whodunit aspect and the unexplained disappearance of a family member. The identity and situation regarding the latter were somewhat easily sussed out--although the very specifics were not hinted at until the Big Reveal. The whodunit aspect kept me guessing and suspecting various characters until the end. This is a long (it's almost 550 pages), winding story with complicated connections and mysterious motivations that are eventually laid bare for the reader's satisfaction. There's a message about faulted mothers doing the best they can here, and there are some opportunities for redemption and peace. I often feel more invested in one timeline than the other in a dual-timeline story, and here I was more intrigued by the past events than I was by Jessica's modern-day efforts to determine the truth. Morton's story explores secrets, loyalties, mysteries, and the complicated matter of family--those you choose, and those you're born into. Click here for my full review of Homecoming.

Blackgoose offers a fascinating, layered story about a strong-willed, whip-smart young Indigenous woman in a steampunk 1800s Nordic setting, with plenty of dragons, dragon science, and dragon bonding alongside activism and bravery. Moniquill Blackgoose's To Shape a Dragon's Breath delivers the dragons: in-depth training around being partnered with dragons, dragon-related science, emotional and physical ties to dragons, and the cultural importance, historical significance, and potential power of being linked to dragons, It's also a steampunk, mid-1800s Nordic setting for some radical rethinking of nonsensical, destructive rules and regulations. To Shape a Dragon's Breath begins on a remote island, Masquapaug, where dragons are local legends--but the Indigenous Masquisit people haven't seen them in generations. Then fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon egg, and when it hatches, she befriends and bonds with the hatchling, Kasaqua. The community's hopes soar for a return to days of cooperation with and good luck received from dragons. Her people celebrate her as a Nampeshiweisit, a respected person who builds a revered relationship with a dragon. But the Anglish conquerers of Masquapaug insist that a dragon must be raised a certain way, and they register the dragon's birth send Anequs and the dragon to a school for special training. If they fail to demonstrate that Anequs can control and shape Kasaqua's behavior, the dragon will be killed. The Anglish colonizers expect Anequs to either adhere to their strict customs and expectations--all of which are a mystery to her--or to behave like Theod, the other "Nackie" they've had in their midst. But Theod was orphaned, removed from his extended family, and raised as a servant. And everyone's about to find out how disruptive a whip-smart, open-minded, and strong-willed young woman can be. Because the restrictive Anglish world--and its selective history of the destruction of the Indigenous people--is due for some changes. And Anequs is just the fearless catalyst who might be able to shift it all. Moniquill Blackgoose offers a wonderfully layered first installment in her series (I can't wait to read the rest of the books as they're published), taking on issues of Indigenous people and colonization, wealth and privilege, gender power imbalances, nontraditional sexual and relationship conventions, the bucking of societal traditions, and more. And my thirst for boarding school/magical school settings was quenched by the feminist-activist Anequs's dragon academy experience. I absolutely loved this. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I cannot wait to read the next installments in this series. I love books about dragons (check out some of my favorites). One of my criticisms of the currently popular romantic fantasy Fourth Wing is that I wanted more more MORE dragons.

LaValle mixes a Western setting with strong feminist messages, magical realism, haunting elements, and the terrifying, freeing truth in facing one's darker side. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who live with shame, and those who die from it. Victor LaValle's Lone Women begins in 1915 with a determined young woman, Adelaide Henry, covering her tracks by burning down her home--with her deceased parents inside. She's packed an incredibly heavy trunk and is setting out from California on a journey to try and leave her past behind. She's set on becoming a homesteader in Montana, one of the "lone women" taking the government up on its offer of free land. In LaValle's magical, dark Western, people tend to disappear whenever Adelaide's mysterious trunk opens. But the nature of the danger only becomes clear to the reader in fits and starts. History is simple, but the past is complicated. I love a Western, and Lone Women is largely set in rural Montana and involves the hardships of getting by in an unforgiving climate and sparsely populated area. But the story's conflict centers around the magical and horrifying danger Adelaide has never acknowledged outside the family yet has carried with her; the reasoning for maintaining her secrecy; her desperate fear of facing the truth; and the devastating idea that a greater understanding and different decisions might have dramatically changed the course of each of her family members' lives. There's a ton to unpack here, including the exploration of the good and evil warring within each of us; what we do when faced with our own monsters; the terrifying power of perception and manipulated presentation; the potential destruction of lies and glossed-over realities; instances of well-deserved, sometimes brutal justice and the grace of redemption; and the depth of love in a chosen family. I've seen Lone Women listed as a horror book, and there are horrifying elements, but the novel is far more than that; the story is complex and strange and interesting, with a pace that keeps moving and a satisfying ending. I listened to the fascinating Lone Women as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? If you like Westerns, you might want to check out the books on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West and  Six More Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West.

Marske's quirky, funny, richly imagined magical world, complex character-building, relationship exploration, and storytelling continues in this third and last installment of the Last Binding series. I've been sooooo excited to read this final installment in Freya Marske's Last Binding trilogy, a queer historical fiction fantasy-mystery series I've loved. Jack Alston (Lord Hawthorn) swore that he was finished with magic for good after his twin sister Elsie died. But when a dangerous ritual threatens the safety of all the magicians in Great Britain, he reluctantly dives back into the world to try and help procure the Last Contract to keep safe his remaining loved ones--and the public at large. An unlikely (and wonderfully mischievous and complementary) group of allies fights to reveal the source of the evil at work, and favorite characters (and villains) from past books are present throughout. Through unexpected attractions to each other and the uncovering of weighty secrets, the group works to unravel the mysterious roots of British magic once and for all. I loved a deeper dive behind Jack's grumpy, closed-off façade. Marske continues the LGBTQ-positive storylines in a Jack-Alan romance that is frequently intensely steamy and develops into a sexual attraction heavy on the role-playing and specifics. The relationship is complicated, sometimes marred by betrayal, and also beautifully heartbreaking and heartwarming in its breaking down of emotional walls. In A Power Unbound, Marske also explores class divides, gender-power imbalances, LGBTQ love, and the difficulty in--and sometimes necessity of--breaking long-held, outdated traditions. The friends-like-family element and deep loyalty is strong among the members of Jack's group, and the magic of the situation is wonderfully imagined and rich in detail. There's danger, and justice served, and imperfect solutions, and compromise, and Marske's storytelling is yet again charming, funny, sometimes dark, and always fantastic. I received a prepublication edition of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Marske is also the author of A Marvellous Light and A Restless Truth.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading the seventh installment in Martha Wells's fantastic science fiction Murderbot series, System Collapse; I'm reading V. E. Schwab's return to the world of the Shades of Magic series (Kell! Delilah Bard! new characters!), The Fragile Threads of Power; and I'm listening to Lone Women, Victor LaValle's Western, which so far features strong female characters and a gothic undercurrent. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 System Collapse (Murderbot #7) by Martha Wells Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse. In System Collapse, we catch up with the delightfully grumpy Murderbot, who in this seventh book in the series is faced with an unethical corporation out to wreak havoc while purportedly rescuing the inhabitants of a newly colonized planet that's in trouble. But Murderbot isn't working as it should, despite ART's best attempts at repairing it and the Preservation Station human allies' work at trying to figure out the problem. If Murderbot is going to save the day, the group is gong to have to identify the issue and resolve it--quickly. You can click here to find my Bossy reviews of Murderbot books 1 through 3, book 4, Exit Strategy, book 5, Network Effect, as well as book 6, Fugitive Telemetry. 02 The Fragile Threads of Power (Threads of Power #1) by V. E. Schwab The Fragile Threads of Power is set in the world of Schwab's Shades of Magic, with a return to the four Londons. The Londons are connected by magic but separated by doors, which were created in a desperate attempt to protect the magic of each world. Only a few Antari have been born in a generation, and they have long been the only ones with the power to open these doors. If you've read the Shades of Magic books, you'll already be acquainted with the fantastic characters of Kell Maresh of Red London, Delilah Bard of Grey London, and Holland Vosijk of White London. Now Kosika, a young, impressionable, fervor-driven young Antari, is taking up the mantle of the deceased Holland's rule in White London. Delilah Bard is crossing worlds to take stock of the threats and power struggles. In Red London, Kell's brother king Rhy Maresh is facing spreading resistance and assassination attempts. And then there's Tes, a crafty runaway with immense power who's just trying to keep from being noticed. The first two books in the Shades of Magic series are A Darker Shade of Magic and A Gathering of Shadows, each of which I gave four Bossy stars. You can check out my review of book 3, A Conjuring of Light, here. 03 Lone Women by Victor LaValle There are two kinds of people in this world: those who live with shame, and those who die from it. Victor LaValle's Lone Women begins in 1915 with a determined young woman, Adelaide Henry, covering her tracks by burning down her home--with her deceased parents inside. She's packed an incredibly heavy trunk and is setting out from California on a journey to leave her past behind. She's set on becoming a homesteader in Montana, one of the "lone women" taking the government up on its offer of free land. In LaValle's magical, dark Western, people tend to disappear whenever Adelaide decides to open her mysterious trunk. But it's best not to test her, because she's prepared to protect her future at any cost. I'm listening to Lone Women as an audiobook. If you like Westerns, you might want to check out the books on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West and  Six More Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West.

Six Bossy Favorite Light Fiction Reads from Last Year I love spending Fridays highlighting books I've loved. And I do love rom-com books--as long as I buy into the small moments they're built upon. These six did the trick for me in the past year. (Stay tuned for another list to come of six more favorites!) For more Bossy lighter fiction favorites, you might want to check out the books on these Greedy Reading Lists: Six More Great Light Fiction Stories Six Lighter Fiction Stories for Great Escapism Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading Six More Great Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading Six of My Favorite Lighter Fiction Reads from the Past Year You can also check out My Very Favorite Bossy 2023 Reads for my overall favorite reads from last year across all genres, and if you're interested, check out My Very Favorite Bossy 2022 Reads too. If you've read any of the books mentioned here, I'd love to hear what you think! What are some of your favorite lighter fiction reads, from the past year or from this one so far? 01 Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez Jimenez's rom-com frequently had me laughing, made me tear up a little, and kept me hooked on the fake-dating, will-they-won't-they tension while also digging into some deep themes. Briana Ortiz's divorce from her cheater husband is about to be finalized, her brother Benny's health is failing, and she's living in her childhood home, complete with its original flowered couches and shabby carpet. At least she can pour energy into her work. She's busy as an ER doctor and is poised to become the next Chief. But when a new doctor relocates to the hospital, Bri's promotion is in jeopardy. She's set to detest this interloper--but then he sends her a letter that changes everything. It's not unusual for me to feel frustrated by a drawn-out will-they/won't-they tension, or by a fake-dating setup between two characters who should obviously be together. But this novel had me eating out of Jimenez's hand. The banter between Bri and Jacob is funny and adorable, their attraction is sometimes steamy, the supporting characters are all wonderfully wrought, and I loved tracing Bri and Jacob's emotional self-discovery as they moved toward a hard-fought resolution to the issues initially stopping them from being together. Jimenez also digs into deep themes here: anxiety disorders, trauma, miscarriage, divorce, financial struggles, and more. Jimenez is also the author of Part of Your World, The Friend Zone, and The Happy-Ever-After Playlist. For my full review, please check out Yours Truly. 02 This Time It's Real by Ann Liang I was hooked by Liang's fake-dating, famous-everyday relationship duo setup, fantastically funny dialogue, and wonderfully imperfect characters with their hard-fought vulnerability and heartbreaking missteps. I devoured this in a rainy afternoon. In Ann Liang's young adult rom-com This Time It's Real, when seventeen-year-old Eliza's class essay about young love goes viral, it leads to the offer of a competitive internship and soaring popularity at her new school. She should be on cloud nine. The only problem is, she made it all up. She's never been in love. But the whirlwind around her pretend relationship is taking on a life of its own. So Eliza makes a desperate deal with a famous actor in her class: if he plays the role of her fake boyfriend at school, she'll help him write his college applications. He's already seen how convincing her writing can be, after all--she's got everyone fooled. When the line between acting and reality becomes blurred, will Eliza's grand plans end up in her own heartbreak? I love a fake-dating premise and a famous-everyday dating premise, and here they are combined. Ann Liang's funny dialogue, characters' various interpersonal challenges and victories, and messy family dynamics had me swooning. Yes to all of this! For my full review, please check out This Time It's Real. This Time It's Real was one of my Favorite Bossy Reads of the Summer last year. 03 The Seven-Year Slip by Ashley Poston I loved the aunt-niece bond, the peeks into the NYC worlds of publishing and restaurants, and the playing with time. I was irritated by the cutesy life quotes put forth by Clementine's aunt and some elements I found convenient but unrealistic. Ashley Poston's newest romantic fiction is centered around Clementine, a harried book publicist who falls in love with her temporary roommate...then discovers he's living seven years in the past. I love when stories play with time (see my multiple favorites lists below), and I loved that the relationship between Clementine and her aunt is said to have been special and strong, and that it is clearly formative in Clementine's life. I loved that The Seven Year Slip was about the publishing world and also the restaurant world, and how much NYC life was showcased and celebrated. A small issue that was key to the plot: there seems to be a lack of Googling on Iwan’s part that was convenient to the story but perplexing to me. Ashley Poston is also the author of The Dead Romantics. Several of my Greedy Reading Lists highlight some of my very favorite books that twist time: Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore, Six More Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore, and Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories. Click here for my full review of The Seven-Year Slip. 04 Woke Up Like This by Amy Lea I loved the premise of a teen who wakes up as a thirty-year-old, engaged to her high school nemesis. Some of the small moments didn't feel real to me, and the story felt like it was young adult--which I love but wasn't expecting here. A fun read. Charlotte Wu is a super organized overachiever, and planning the perfect prom is the final item on her high school to-do list. But decorating disasters threaten to undo her plan when she falls off a ladder and crashes into her nemesis, J. T. Renner. When Charlotte wakes up, she finds that more has gone awry than the streamers in the gym. Unless she's hallucinating or dreaming, she's thirty years old. Living in a grown-up's house, holding down a job, having an adult life. And the bearded fiance sleeping next to her...is J. T. Renner. This premise is a slam-dunk for me. I looove a book that plays with time. I may have seen the mistaken-premise setup coming, and the friend betrayal, and the rough lines of the resolution to come, but I loved the bookending of the time capsule and letters to their future selves, the second-chance element, and the love. Woke Up Like This is a fun read. For my full review, check out Woke Up Like This. 05 Charm City Rocks: A Love Story by Matthew Norman Charm City Rocks is sweet, interesting, and layered. I loved this story about relationships, complications, famous/everyday person romance, and a love of music that binds. Billy Perkins is a music teacher living above a record store in Baltimore called Charm City Rocks with his beloved teen son Caleb. He's content co-parenting with his ex-partner Robyn, who is remarried. Margot Hammer, on the other hand, is miserable. The former drummer of the popular band Burnt Flowers is, decades later, a recluse living in New York City. When a documentary shines a light on Margot again, Billy's longtime crush on the musician is renewed. Caleb cooks up a scheme to get Margot to perform at Charm City Rocks so his dad, who Caleb thinks is lonely, can finally meet Margot and, if all goes as planned, hopefully forge a connection. The everyday-person/famous-person love is a favorite trope of mine, and Norman adds emotional complexities to each of the main characters' situations so that their ups and downs feel appealingly realistic. I was in love with Charm City Rocks. This is a perfect light-fiction read that's fun and funny, but never silly. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading List, Six Rockin' Stories about Bands and Music. Please click here for my full review of Charm City Rocks. 06 Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune Summertime is the backdrop to Fortune's Meet Me at the Lake, light fiction with an anchor in deeper issues, some steamy scenes, conflicting feelings surrounding coming home again, shifting dreams, and a satisfyingly layered resolution. Thirty-two-year-old Fern Brookbanks has pinned most of her romantic dreams on Will Baxter--despite the fact that they spent only 24 hours together in their twenties. A chance encounter blossomed into a glorious connection and a pact to meet up one year later at her family resort...but while Fern showed up to their romantic meet-up, Will did not. Fern has moved on. Now she's coping with a tragedy--and guess who shows up to meet Fern, nine years late? Within the book's summertime setting Fortune explores heavy issues related to mental illness, sudden death, unplanned pregnancy, substance abuse--and also the complicated joy of having friends like family, facing responsibility and challenge, and acknowledging when long-held dreams have changed. The banter is fun, there are some steamy scenes, and I believed in the relationship and its ups and downs. Click here for my full review of Meet Me at the Lake. Carley Fortune is also the author of Every Summer After.

Lisa See offers a vivid peek at the lives of women in 15th century China, complete with a fascinating female-doctor element that kept me captivated. No mud, no lotus. Lady Tan's Circle of Women is my first book club read of 2024, and wow, does this one start off with a bang. Full-force details of foot-binding, and See doesn't stint on the page time spent on the topic. Whew! Tan Yunxian's grandmother is one of only a few female doctors in 15th century China, and Yunxian is learning all she can from her beloved family matriarch. When terrible tragedies strike, Yunxian's comfort comes in the unlikely form of her father's kind and caring concubine. Yunxian's eventual arranged marriage means she lives under the thumb of a controlling mother-in-law, who severely curtails her ability to practice medicine, as in the family's opinion, Yunxian's main goal should be to birth sons. See presents Yunxian as a feminist in many ways, but doesn't allow her to feel more modern than might seem plausible. She resists some of the constraints put upon her, particularly those credited to tradition rather than wisdom, yet she feels authentically of this time period. The title is interesting; since finishing I have thought more about the eclectic community of women that make up Yunxian's world and the deep ties she builds with some characters that often feel unexpected. I love a female-doctor and medical storyline, and I was particularly captivated by that aspect of Lady Tan, including the treatments, techniques, and beliefs that feel of the time period at hand. I listened to this as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Lisa See is also the author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane.

Atul Gawande writes clearly and poignantly about the search to achieve maximum well-being rather than prolonging diminished life at all costs--as well as the many complicating factors that make it difficult to transition to a focus on quality of life. We've been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way. The past century of medical advancements have transformed some grave conditions from death sentences to manageable or curable illnesses. But the focus on living longer and attempting to move past former limitations of medical solutions sometimes create a difficult dynamic: pursuing additional years of life at any cost sometimes means paying the price by experiencing a dramatically diminished quality of life. Whenever serious sickness or injury strikes and your body or mind breaks down, the vital questions are the same: What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make? And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding? In Being Mortal, surgeon, former Harvard professor, and public health leader (Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID) Atul Gawande explores the successes and failures of the medical field in prolonging a life worth living. Being Mortal is a beautiful, poignant, clearheaded examination of the intersection of mortality, medicine, dreams, and reality. Gawande emphasizes asking key questions of loved ones to clearly understand their own particular, sometimes surprising lines in the sand regarding quality of life before they are unable to make key decisions for themselves: what are they willing to forgo in order to live? By exploring studies but primarily by digging into various patients' (including his own father's) experiences with disability and end of life, Gawande emphasizes the power of communication--among family members, between patient and doctor, and regarding the extensive resources and bolstered short-term outcomes available through hospice. All-out treatment, we tell the incurably ill, is a train you can get off at any time--just say when. But for most patients and their families we are asking too much. They remain driven by doubt and fear and desperation; some are deluded by a fantasy of what medical science can achieve. I was fascinated by Gawande's study of our culture's never-give-up mentality and many loved ones' resulting feeling that it's their duty to fight for additional medical interventions for their family member or friend--no matter the likelihood of bettering their well-being, or likely detriment to their last days. He acknowledges medical professionals' role and frequent lack of training in this complicated, fraught dance: a desire for a return to full health set against the likely negative effects of powerful treatments unlikely to postpone the end of life or bolster quality of life. The nationwide movement away from dying at home has been driven in some cases by panic in the face of potential loss, and by ignorance of loved ones' wishes and understanding combined with a misguided belief in medicinal miracles. These complicating factors often lead to invasive measures unlikely to prolong life but very likely to cause significant detriments to quality of life at the end. Gawande dives into the beautiful, essential work of hospice care, and also imagines measures to better train and equip doctors to consider the trade-offs of extensive medical intervention near the end of life and its implications. We know the dance moves. You agree to become a patient, and I, the clinician, agree to try to fix you, whatever the improbability, the misery, the damage, or the cost. With this new way, in which we together try to figure out how to face mortality and preserve the fiber of a meaningful life, with its loyalties and individuality, we are plodding novices. We are going through a societal learning curve, one person at a time. Being Mortal is essential reading, gorgeously written and clearly presented. I found it fascinating, powerful, and valuable. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book or topic? If you're interested in books about mortality like I am, you might like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality and Six More Powerful Books about Facing Mortality.

Dowry of Blood is a shadowy, spooky, sultry story imagining Dracula's wife Constanta and their relationship, in which he exerts control and constricts her actions--until she dares to dream of exploring the world outside in the centuries of life she has left. I wonder if you would have wanted me if you found me like that: vibrant and loved and alive. Constanta is the sole survivor of a brutal medieval massacre in her village--but she's drawing her last breaths. Then a mysterious stranger arrives--seemingly drawn by her wavering between life and death--and promises her eternal life as his bride. Dowry of Blood is a spooky, sultry, shadowy story of Dracula's first wife, and in Constanta's point of view we witness her horror as the full impact of her husband's power and cruelty becomes clear. After years under his strict control (he is not named as Dracula here), the forced isolation begins to grate upon her. New members of their group are brought in, intimately connected to each other yet trapped in the same claustrophobic circle of hell. Constanta flirts with moments of joy and begins to imagine an alternate path to freedom and discovering the wonders out in the world. When Constanta breaks into her husband's private sanctum and discovers his significant studies, hidden knowledge, and vulnerability, Constanta and her precious allies debate whether to attempt to gather the significant courage to act against him or to continue on for centuries more under his confining, constricting thumb. But they have stayed too long in their fortress in the country; her husband's self-assured confidence and careless actions have led murderous villagers to their door. This could be the end of the "family"--or a sudden opportunity to fight for their freedom. I listened to Dowry of Blood as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? You might also want to check out these gothic-feeling stories. For a more playful take on vampires, check out Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series; you can read my review of the witty, fun Soulless here and my take on book two, Changeless, here. I plan to finish this great series at some point. For a very different take, you might check out The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, in which vampires mainly serve as catalysts for change.

The Books I'm Reading Now For my book club I'm reading Lady Tan's Circle of Women, Lisa See's newest story of women in ancient China; I'm reading Maude Horton's Glorious Revenge, Lizzie Pook's upcoming (January 16) novel of Victorian England and Arctic mystery; and I'm listening to Dowry of Blood, S. T. Gibson's shadow-filled novel about Dracula and his first wife, Constanta. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See No mud, no lotus. Lady Tan's Circle of Women is my first book club read of 2024, and wow, does this one start off with a bang. Full-force details of foot-binding, and See doesn't stint on the page time spent on the topic. Whew! Tan Yunxian's grandmother is one of only a few female doctors in 15th century China, and Yunxian is learning all she can from her beloved family matriarch. When terrible tragedies strike, Yunxian's comfort comes in the unlikely form of her father's kind and caring concubine. Yunxian's eventual arranged marriage means she lives under the thumb of a controlling mother-in-law, and her ability to practice medicine is severely curtailed, as in the family's opinion, her main goal should be to birth sons. I'm listening to this as an audiobook. Lisa See is also the author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. 02 Maude Horton's Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook Constance Horton has run from her life in Victorian London, disguising herself as a boy (I always love this setup) on the Makepeace, an exploration ship bound for the Northwest Passage of the Arctic. But her femininity is a dangerous potential liability, and the men on the ship, including the ship's stern doctor, likely won't take kindly to her deceit if she's found out. Two years later, Constance hasn't returned, and her sister Maude is determined to find out what happened to Constance. I received a prepublication edition of Maude Horton's Glorious Revenge, to be published January 16, courtesy of NetGalley and Simon & Schuster. 03 Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson I wonder if you would have wanted me if you found me like that: vibrant and loved and alive. Constanta is the sole survivor of a brutal medieval massacre in her village--but she's drawing her last breaths. Then a mysterious stranger arrives--seemingly drawn by her wavering between life and death--and promises her eternal life as his bride. Dowry of Blood is a spooky, sultry, shadowy story of Dracula's first wife, and from Constanta's point of view we witness her horror as the full impact of her husband's power and cruelty becomes clear. I'm listening to Dowry of Blood as an audiobook.

My very favorite reads of 2023! I post my favorite reads each month, and I was having such a great reading run, in late spring I posted Six of My Favorite Reads of the Year So Far. But I had such a great reading run for the rest of the year, none of the books from that list made it to my final Favorites list here. (If you're following along, five out of six of My Bossy Favorite Reads of the Summer did make it onto this list. That's some strong summer reading!) If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear what you think! To check out my favorite reads from prior years, take a look at My Very Favorite Bossy 2022 Reads, My Twelve Very Favorite 2021 Reads, and My Twelve Favorite 2020 Books. What were some of your favorite reads of the year? Let's do some Bossy book talking! 01 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Kingsolver offers an epic story of a faulted, unlikely hero in danger of being crushed by exceptionally difficult circumstances. His golden heart and grit allow him to keep fighting through brokenness, pain, and disappointment in rural Virginia. The newest Barbara Kingsolver book, which has been called an Appalachian David Copperfield, is epic. It's 560 pages and driven by the unique voice and gritty, heartbreakingly hopeful, broken voice of Demon (named Damon, a redhead, hence the "Copperhead"). Charles Dickens's experience with extreme poverty in Victorian England inspired him to highlight its cruel impacts on children in his story David Copperfield. That book inspired Demon Copperhead, in which Kingsolver showcases the invisibility of the rural poor in Appalachia as well as a tragic cycle of poverty, drug dependence, and death--with signature Kingsolver characters who have unique voices and are complex, flawed, and irresistible. The downward spiral kept going and going, and its grimness took my breath away. Yet Kingsolver keeps Demon's voice strong even as he falters and as everything he has counted on seems swept away. His rock-bottom--it isn't a moment; it feels as though he drags the bottom for years--sets up a situation in which he seems washed clean for some version of a new beginning. The prospects for Demon's future seem far from neat and perfect, but by the end of the book there are glimmers of hope for our faulted hero. Click here for my full review of Demon Copperhead. 02 Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You by Lucinda Williams Lucinda Williams offers a gritty, honest, captivating, spare yet fully developed memoir in which she explores her musical influences and influential high and low moments in her personal life. In Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, songwriter, singer, and musician Lucinda Williams shares stories of her childhood, her musical influences, and pivotal moments in her career and personal life. Williams takes us along as she digs into her life's trajectory and the various conflicts, explorations, realizations, and challenges that have shaped her. Her insights into her mindset and her creativity are often offbeat, and they always feel thoughtful. She writes songs about "sex, love, and the state of the world," and in one instance describes musical freedom as feeling like everything is “uncorked." As she digs into the inspirations for her music she quotes her own lyrics--along with, occasionally, others' poems--and it all feels like truth-telling poetry--in her case, often set to music. Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You was wonderful--spare yet fully developed, often surprising, and always intriguing. With wry humor, gritty honesty, and refreshingly candid reflections, Williams's singular voice comes through steadily here. I listened to Williams's Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You as an audiobook and enjoyed hearing her tell her own story. For my full review, check out Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You. 03 The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue Caroline O'Donoghue's coming-of-age story celebrates friendship, young love, and life-changing decisions and missteps that shape the lives of her characters in 2010s Ireland. In Caroline O'Donoghue's contemporary fiction The Rachel Incident, main character Rachel is an Irish university student working in a Cork bookstore in the 2010s. She's dating a boring but reliable young man from her high school and living at home when she meets James. James is irresistible, vivacious, and mischievous--and Rachel is immediately swept into his powerful orbit. Years later, Rachel runs into someone from her past, which spurs her to think back to the events and relationships that shaped her during her college years. Despite some of the questionable, haunting choices that are made at times in the story, I was so taken with the characters that my cringing didn't hamper my enjoyment of the celebration of friendship, circuitous routes to self-confidence, and heartwarming second chances. I loved The Rachel Incident--the story, the characters, and the vivid setting of 2010s Ireland. Click here for my full review of The Rachel Incident. 04 Chenneville by Paulette Jiles Jiles's newest stark, beautiful, heartbreaking historical fiction tracks former Union soldier John Chenneville as he travels the country seeking vengeance for the brutal murder of his sister and family. I got full-body chills when I saw that Paulette Jiles had a new historical fiction novel coming out. The enthusiasm of my obsession with her book News of the World was (borderline? full-on?) irritating to the rest of my book club years ago, but I couldn't help my love. In Jiles's Chenneville, titular character John Chenneville is a former Union soldier who has spent the year since the end of the war recovering from a severe brain injury. Now he's on a quest for revenge for the brutal, senseless murder of his sister and her family. Jiles writes gorgeously about the unforgiving landscape, post-Civil-War wasteland, and the sprigs of promising new beginnings. As always, her main characters are richly layered, struggle with terrible circumstances, retain strong moral compasses, and find glimmers of hope in the darkest of days. Paulette Jiles also wrote News of the World, Simon the Fiddler, and The Color of Lightning. You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Satisfying Novels about Revenge and Six More Satisfying Novels about Revenge. Click here for my full review of Chenneville. 05 Foster by Claire Keegan Keegan offers a gorgeously wrought Irish story of childhood, hope, love, and loss that is spare, lovely, heartbreaking, and that brought me to tears. In Claire Keegan's slim novel Foster, a young girl in Ireland is taken by her unreliable, frequently drunk gambler of a father to spend the hot summer with previously unknown-to-her relatives, a couple living on a rural farm. Her bitter mother has just had another baby, and her various other siblings are fighting for resources. Her home life is hectic, hardscrabble, and emotionally cold, but she has never known life to be any other way. The loving, affectionate household in the country allows her to feel more open and secure than she has before. She has plenty to eat, useful work to do, she learns to love books, she finds laughter. She can't help wondering if she might possibly be here to stay of if she'll be thrust back into her rough home, and which she'd prefer. Summer is ending, and there's a mysterious, unspoken, dark undercurrent at the Kinsellas'. I absolutely adored this book. It's beautiful, spare, and powerful. I was brought to tears at the end. I'm in for all Claire Keegan books forever now. I also loved Claire Keegan's novel Small Things Like These. Check out my reviews of So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men and the short story collection Antarctica. Click here for my full review of Foster. 06 We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman Newman's writing is irresistible; she offers a heartbreaking and heartwarming tribute to friendship and to family that centers around witty dialogue, unconventional arrangements, coping with an excruciating, looming end, and above all else, love. In Catherine Newman's novel We All Want Impossible Things, Edith and Ashley have been best friends for more than four decades. They've shared the good, bad, and the ugly; endless painfully mundane and thrilling cliffhanger moments; love and loss; disappointment and victory; and everything in between. But now the unthinkable is happening: Edi is dying from ovarian cancer and living out her days in a hospice near Ash. Ash is struggling with her own imperfections as a mother, wife, and friend as she tries to figure out how to say goodbye to her longest, best friend in the world. Newman's lets the reader into Edi and Ash's rabbit warren of private jokes and moments and memories, and she made me feel a part of it all. The dialogue is exceptional in how real it feels--funny, heartbreaking, sometimes realistically without resolution. I find myself drawn to books that explore mortality. We All Want Impossible Things is heartbreaking and wonderfully strange, funny and full of love, and a tribute to deeply loving friendships and families. I loved this. For my full review, please check out We All Want Impossible Things. 07 Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister McAllister offers a smart, intriguing, twisty story that plays with time and offers second chances, revelations, betrayals, deep connections, and an unusual route to uncovering the truth. I loved it. Gillian McAllister's twisty mystery Wrong Place Wrong Time plays with time, and I love books that play with time. The story begins with a mother awaiting her teenage son's return home late one night. She peers out the window to see him walking down the street--then she sees that he is armed, and to her horror, she sees him kill another man on the street. But when she awakens the next morning bracing to face the living nightmare her family has begun living in, she's relieved to find that her son hasn't killed anyone, he hasn't been arrested, and in fact, none of last night's events have happened after all. She must be losing her mind. But she knows that last night was real. Somehow she's reliving yesterday again. She really and truly is. She can't explain what's happened, but she quickly realizes that now she may be able to stop the murder before it occurs. Can she shift the future by changing the past? The story was fascinating and touching and chilling and sweet. I absolutely loved it. Please click here for my full review of Wrong Place, Wrong Time. 08 Happiness Falls by Angie Kim Angie Kim's sophomore novel is a mystery, but Happiness Falls is primarily an exploration of a complicated, loving, messy family and each of its members. For the rest of our lives, every time one of us goes somewhere and doesn’t return on time, doesn’t let the others know where we are, we will remember this time, what can happen. And we will fall apart. Mia doesn't panic when her father and brother Eugene are late returning from a walk in the park. They might have forgotten their phones, or taken a detour. But when Eugene rushes into the house, bloody and alone, Mia realizes something terrible has happened. And Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome, cannot communicate to tell her what occurred. Kim's missing-person novel is a mystery and is structured around the discovery and exploration of what may have happened to cause Mia's father's disappearance. But Happiness Falls is primarily a story about a family finally understanding each other and going to extraordinary lengths to work together. For my full review, please see Happiness Falls. 09 Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter I LOVED this young adult book. It's perfectly charming, funny, quirky, and sweet, yet it deals with grief and fear, hope and forgiveness, being true to oneself and growing up, and of course love. Lynn Painter's adorable young adult rom-com Better Than the Movies is about Liz Buxbaum, a fabulously eccentric high schooler coping with the grief of having lost her mom--while navigating the sparkly idea--and messy reality--of romance, with the inspiration of her mom's favorite romantic comedies. Liz is a hopeless romantic who has been waiting her whole high school career to be swept off her feet in quintessential romantic-comedy fashion--with the perfect soundtrack playing in the background. But it looks like she may have to rely on her annoying next-door neighbor Wes to try to gain the attention of dreamy Michael with the perfect hair, who has just moved back to town. Better Than the Movies is funny funny funny and so lovely and sweet, I adored the whole story, the characters, the growth, the banter, the heartbreaking, heartwarming growth, the fun--this is basically a perfect young adult romantic comedy. For my full review of this book, please see Better Than the Movies. 10 The Last Ranger by Peter Heller Heller's suspenseful wilderness story is full of danger, wonder, and emotional ties; the unforgiving nature and beauty of the natural world; and quick thinking that saves the day more than once. As with all Heller novels, the writing is exquisitely beautiful. The Last Ranger centers around Ren, an enforcement officer in Yellowstone National Park. Ren spends his days protecting tourists from the wild animals who live in the park, stopping drunken fights at campgrounds, and serving as mediator between wealthy vacationers temporarily in the park and the working-class full-time residents of the neighboring town. When he investigates a local poacher, he begins to unravel a complicated web of conspiracy theories, renegade heroism, secrets, and danger. As always, I'm in for Heller's showcasing of the unforgiving, beautiful natural world; the sometimes-renegade justice that emerges in impossible situations; and his characters' hard-won emotional vulnerability. His writing is just gorgeous and I'm in for every word. Heller is also the author of The Guide, The River, and The Painter, as well as The Dog Stars. Click here for my full review of The Last Ranger. 11 Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld Sittenfeld's funny and sweet take on an unlikely romance sparked by a longtime SNL-type weekly skit show immediately had me hooked, never felt too easy, and charmed me throughout. I love Curtis Sittenfeld's books, and in Romantic Comedy she offers an outstanding premise: Sally Milz is a sketch writer for a late-night comedy show, and she's sworn off love. That is, until she pokes fun at her fellow writer in a sketch about talented but average-looking men dating gorgeous women...and then gorgeous pop sensation and serial model-dater Noah Brewster hosts the show and turns his attentions on Sally. I was delighted to find that much of the book is focused on the behind-the-scenes making of the SNL-like Saturday night sketch comedy show in the book, The Night Owls, and I was fascinated by this aspect. Romantic Comedy offers lots of funny, funny dialogue that delighted me. This was the right book at the right time for me, and I loved everything about it. Sittenfeld is also the author of American Wife, You Think It, I'll Say It, Prep, Rodham, and Eligible. Click here for my full review of Romantic Comedy. 12 Maame by Jessica George Jessica George's debut Maame takes on big issues of race, culture, and the challenges of growing up between two cultures while shining in its details: wonderful dialogue, messy moments, and the main character's hard-won self-discovery and growth. Young adult Maddie's life in London is exhausting. She's the primary caregiver for her father, who has Parkinson's disease; she pays the bills; her mother spends the majority of her time in Ghana yet manages to micromanage Maddie's religious faith and life from across the globe; her older brother never seems to be around to help; and she's the only Black person at work with a boss who shifts all of the blame and none of the accolades her way. When her mom shows up from Ghana, Maddie jumps at the chance for some independence; a late bloomer, she finds a flat share and revels in finally being on her own. Maddie is inexperienced and has been somewhat isolated in her caregiver role (although she has close friends, who are wonderful characters in the story), so she's got a lot of learning to do and mistakes to make. Jessica George offers a wonderful story with messy moments of love, some humor, big issues of race, loss, anger, lies and betrayal, and underneath it all, the constant, stressful push and pull between Maddie's two cultures. Maame explores Maddie's search to establish herself in the world, and I loved rooting for her the whole way. For my full review, check out Maame.

In this return to the world of Elfhame (Folk of the Air trilogy), Holly Black takes us deeper into the story of characters Wren and Oak as they determine whether they can trust each other as they attempt to save Madoc. As a child, Wren read lots of fairy tales. That’s why, when the monsters came, she knew it was because she had been wicked. In The Stolen Heir, the first book in Holly Black's Stolen Heir duology, the story returns to the world of Elfhame. (It's important to first read the Folk of the Air trilogy--see link below in order to understand the plot and character development). Suren (Wren), changeling child queen of the Court of Teeth, is forced to band together with the charming, untrustworthy Oak (fae brother of Jude), to try to save Madoc from Lady Nore's Ice Needle Citadel. Wren and Oak were once betrothed, and Wren isn't sure how much of Oak's appealing vulnerability and honesty is real--or if she's being played for a fool. But Wren isn't content to let her fate be shaped by a beautiful, magical prince. She's going to need to wrest control of her own destiny. I didn't feel drawn in by Wren, who feels lost throughout much of the story, and I didn't feel as though Oak was as fully developed as I wanted him to be. I loved the return of the storm hag Bogdana! I listened to this as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Click here for my review of Black's The Queen of Nothing; I mentioned the great Folk of the Air trilogy in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series.

In the dystopian food desert of the future, a desperate chef is enlisted to create elaborate dishes for the wealthiest elite on a lush mountaintop compound, and she loses more and more of herself and her morals with each passing day. On Sunday, we slathered brioche with cultured butter, dolloped crème fraîche on daubes, and spooned a pudding of Aida's creation. The interior was so creamy it recalled the molten center of the earth. If the land of milk and honey produced no further milk, this meal proclaimed, then we would sup of the last like kings and queens. In C. Pam Zhang's slim dystopian novel Land of Milk and Honey, an unnamed chef in a polluted, dying city flees to a mountaintop retreat--and finds that fresh food, clear air, and lush opportunities for pleasure abound for the most wealthy elite. As the chef explores the sensual pleasures of food and reawakens her connection to her body, she considers the ethics of taking advantage of the opportunities provided by her proximity to privilege. She benefits from her precarious but well-fed position, but she is repeatedly asked to subsume her ethics in increasingly disturbing ways, and she struggles with her role in perpetuating elitism while envisioning rebuilding a more just world. Zhang repeatedly demonstrates the hubris of the uber-wealthy upper classes in the environmentally devastated world of the near future. For the incredibly wealthy, controlling the future feels like controlling the past--those who dole out the food reserves also control access to taste-inspired memories, family recipes, former everyday treats, and legendary delicacies only imagined. The faulted, privileged few are terrifying in their elaborate, exclusive plans, which exclude all but a fraction of humanity. Money talks--and money is the only thing that buys food in a smog-ruined world. The chef finds herself forced to ignore her training and knowledge of how to treat ingredients in order to preserve her own safety and adhere to the base wishes of her benefactor and controlling group. But when the boss's daughter begins tinkering with precious resources, our main protagonist is swept up into a relationship she never anticipated--the cooking and romance and gross negligence all tied up in one giant, guilty wonder of a mess. This was an interesting dystopia and premise, and the writing about food is rich and captivating, but it took me foreeeeever to read this one. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Zhang is also the author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold? For more dystopian stories, check out Six Fascinating Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels and Six More Fantastic Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels.

First: this amazing cover. Second: Starter Villain is playful, darkly funny, big-hearted, and wonderfully weird. I loved it and I can't wait to read more John Scalzi books. “I can’t tell if you’re joking with me,” I said. “I’m mostly joking with you.” “That ‘mostly’ is doing a lot of work in that sentence.” The cover of Starter Villain shows a grumpy-seeming cat's head on a human torso clad in a suit with "Meet the new boss" across the top, so obviously this was going to be a Bossy read. And I love that this is my first review of 2024. Bring on the weird and wonderful books! In Starter Villain, Charlie's a substitute teacher, divorced, struggling emotionally, socially, and financially, and living in a house his half-siblings want to sell. Then he inherits his long-lost uncle's parking-garage empire. Which turns out to be a cover for a vast supervillain business--complete with an evil lair in an island volcano. I held up my hand, and then looked around the room, at the room full of probably-assassins. "Do any of you know my uncle personally?’" No one responded. "How many of you are here to make sure that he’s dead?" All the hands went up. Could this be an unexpected new start that will point Charlie in a productive new direction? The recently deceased Uncle Jake, an old-fashioned villain, made a lot of enemies--and they're ruthless, well-funded, and out for revenge. Charlie will have to quickly get up to speed and figure out friend from foe in order to stay alive. This villain business is more complicated than it seems. There's crossing, double-crossing, a wonderfully savvy and knowledgeable second-in-command, nefarious plots, sentient cats, and more. This was playful, smart, funny, and weird. I loved it, and I can't wait to read more John Scalzi books. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? The premise of this novel calls to my mind another book, which I loved, Natalie Zina Walschots's Hench, as well as loose associations with How to Date a Superhero (And Not Die Trying).