ICYMI: Morton offers a strong historical fiction mystery, with assumed identities, dual timelines, twists and turns, and a richly wrought setting. In 1862, a group of artists arrive at Birchwood Manor to relax and allow inspiration to strike, but odd tragedy and destruction unfold instead. A hundred and fifty years later, a young archivist, Elodie Winslow, is drawn to the mystery. She's determined not to stop until she finds out what really happened that summer. This one took a little page time to start moving along for me, but I love Kate Morton’s writing and her rich detail. I’m glad the circumstances of what led to the mystery—yikes!—didn’t become plain until toward the end. With dual storylines, multiple generations, assumed identities, otherworldly beings, wonderful chance (and life-changing) encounters, and a rich English countryside setting. This was lovely. I mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Six Historical Fiction Mysteries Sure to Intrigue You. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Kate Morton is also the author of Homecoming, The Forgotten Garden, The Secret Keeper, The House at Riverton, The Distant Hours, and The Lake House.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading the newest suspenseful mystery by Wendy Walker, scheduled for publication tomorrow, American Girl; I'm reading Emily Tesh's debut novel, a space opera, Some Desperate Glory; and I'm listening to Evil Eye, Etaf Rum's newest fiction about culture, marriage, and the struggle to figure out your true self. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 American Girl by Wendy Walker Charlie is an autistic teen working hard at The Triple S sandwich shop so that she can one day afford to leave her Pennsylvania hometown. But when the shop owner, who owns several other local businesses and is a town council member, turns up dead, everyone becomes a suspect, including all of the employees at The Triple S. Charlie must help discover the truth to clear the suspicion of murder that's been raised regarding her coworkers--and Charlie herself. 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. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing. American Girl is scheduled for publication tomorrow. 02 Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh Kyr has not only trained her whole life for the day she can avenge the destruction of Earth, she was genetically bred to be exceptional at the task. But when unexpected events lead her to leave the only home she's ever known in order to save her genetic 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 debut novel is a space opera about war, duty, brainwashing, escaping limitations, and reinventing oneself. 03 Evil Eye by Etaf Rum Yara is put on probation at the college where she is an assistant art history teacher after calling out a colleague for racism. She's required to attend therapy to learn to cope with her anger, even though she's sure therapy is just a waste of time. So what if she's resentful of the limitations she allows to be put on her, if she's blanking on periods of current-day life due to stress, if she's increasingly dissatisfied with her life, if she's frequently flashing back to her parents' abuse? Isn't she supposed to feel thankful for a kind husband, healthy and lovely daughters, and being allowed to have a job? Rum explores mother-daughter relationships and cycles of dysfunction and abuse in Evil Eye. I'm listening to this as an audiobook. Etaf Rum is also the author of A Woman Is No Man.

North Carolina Love! I love reading novels with Southern, Appalachian, and specifically North Carolina settings. Here are six I've loved set in the Tar Heel State. Have you read any of these? If so, I'd love to hear what you thought. Do you have any favorite books set where you live? 01 When These Mountains Burn by David Joy Joy offers an often dark work of Southern literary fiction through which bubbles of hope emerge. Ray has outlived his beloved wife in the mountains of North Carolina. He has a precious old girl of a dog, a fascination with (and healthy fear of) coyotes, a love of reading, and a no-nonsense manner that makes clear he doesn't brook fools. He has almost resigned himself to the heartbreaking idea that his addict son is too lost to be saved. There's an undercover cop nearby who's trying to help take down a robust drug ring, and then there's Ray, who uses old-fashioned methods and his knowledge of mountain terrain to address injustices in a straightforward way. When These Mountains Burn isn't always easy to read, but it isn't over the top, and Joy's characters are fascinatingly faulted and keep you humming right along. I read this in 24 hours while wishing I were making it last longer. For my full review of When These Mountains Burn, click here. 02 Gods of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown Taylor Brown's five-star, 1950s North Carolina-set novel offers mountain clans, whiskey runners, folk healers, family conflict, and dark, brooding woodland settings. I loved it. Rory Docherty has returned to rural North Carolina with a wooden leg and haunting memories of his time fighting in the Korean War. He's running whiskey to juke joints, brothels, and other seedy spots in his 1940 Ford, driving fast, avoiding federal agents, and living with his grandmother, a healer with strong opinions about Rory's love interest, a snake-handling preacher's daughter in the mill town nearby. Family secrets and conflicts come to a head as The Gods of Howl Mountain reaches a dark, brooding, beautiful crescendo. Brown’s descriptions are intensely arresting. He delves deeply and deftly, cutting to the quick and avoiding what in less skilled hands could have been caricatures of North Carolina mountain folk. I loved every bit of this story. Taylor is also the author of Pride of Eden, Fallen Land, a title I loved and included in the Greedy Reading List Six Great Historical Fiction Stories about the Civil War, and Wingwalkers. For my full review, check out The Gods of Howl Mountain. 03 When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash I loved Cash's Eastern North Carolina setting, the character of Sheriff Winston Barnes, and the pulsing racial, class-based, and family conflicts explored in When Ghosts Come Home. Sheriff Winston Barnes knows he probably won't be reelected. He does things by the book and isn't flashy, while his aggressive opponent seems to amass more wealth and (dubious sources of) support each passing day. Meanwhile, Winston's wife is in cancer treatment and his daughter has just experienced a devastating loss and is drifting, unmoored. He's got a lot on his plate. But when a body and an abandoned airplane are found in his quiet, coastal North Carolina town, Winston must try to unravel the mystery of the events at hand. Rumors, long-simmering conflicts, clashing loyalties, and Barnes's personal tragedy all complicate the discovery of the truth. I was all in for the shocking events that occurred late in the book. Wiley Cash is also the author of A Land More Kind than Home, The Last Ballad, and This Dark Road to Mercy. Click here for my full review of When Ghosts Come Home. 04 The Caretaker by Ron Rash Ron Rash's 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. IA 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 loved the glimpses of rural life and of the specific place and time that Rash crafts so well. The writing is beautifully spare, and the ending is satisfying in multiple ways. For my full review, check out The Caretaker. 05 The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda Miranda uses the framework of a famous fictional rescue story to imagine the characters' turmoil and desperate coping mechanisms, crafting a fascinating look at the depths beneath their surfaces. Olivia (then called Arden) was a small child when she sleepwalked into a storm and was washed away. Three days later, she was recovered in a miraculous series of events that ended up with her rescue and removal from a storm drain. Now someone from her past has resurfaced, and he could reveal her carefully hidden secrets and ruin everything. When evidence of brutal violence emerges close to home, Olivia wonders if someone is protecting her or possibly seeking some kind of revenge--and if that someone might even be Olivia herself. I found the ending of the book gloriously terrifying. The last few pages felt a little disjointed from the story. But the familiar echoes of a story like "baby Jessica in the well," the media frenzy, and the public's emotional investment were a intriguing framework for Miranda's story. For my full review of this book, see The Girl from Widow Hills. 06 The Last Child by John Hart I loved John Hart's brusque, determined Clyde Hunt, the scrappy and unstoppable young Johnny Merrimon, the sinister underbelly of their rural North Carolina town, and basically everything about this intricate literary mystery-thriller. Hart knows how to masterfully build a story around unforgettable characters with layers they reluctantly reveal. I didn't expect the resolution Hart allows to unfold at the end. But I was in for whatever he was dishing up, and I was fascinated all along the way. The Last Child appears in the Greedy Reading List The Six Best Mysteries I Read Last Year. John Hart has also written many other books, including The Hush, the second in the Johnny Merrimon series, and the wonderfully written, often tough-to-read Redemption Road, as well as The Unwilling. Hart has written many other books, including The Hush, which is the second in the Johnny Merrimon series, and Redemption Road. Side note: I'm captivated by Hart's stories, but I admit that I had difficulty sitting through the horrific cruelties perpetuated by multiple characters in Redemption Road. I loved his imperfect, brave, relentlessly tough protagonists, and Hart is a gifted storyteller, but the rock-bottom depravity and evil underpinnings of much of Redemption Road story were upsetting and difficult to read.

Emi, Kristina, and Larch are a family that survived the immense destruction of the climate crisis, but secrets, danger, and a double life might be their undoing. Emi Vargas is, frankly, tired of being reminded that her parents were part of the movement that saved the world--and weary of the constant comments about how she's so lucky to have been born after the climate crisis. But then climate criminals begin to be systematically assassinated in public shows of retaliation for their past crimes, Emi's mother Kristina goes missing, and Emi fears that her mother is in danger. Emi and her father Larch journey from their home in Greenland to a near-future, postapocalyptic New York City, frequently ravaged by flooding and storms, to try to find Kristina. Googins explores a United States of the not-too-distant-future, in which "oldies" are Taylor Swift and Adele songs, hurricanes and storms are constant...and no one should be able to forget the recent climate implosion that threatened to doom them all. (The future timeline alternates with a past-timeline account of the brutal experiences of Larch and Kristina during The Great Transition.) Yet the wealthy are getting wealthier again, emissions threaten to creep up due to corporate greed, and some of the people who struggled to facilitate The Great Transition don't want to see those who allowed the world crisis to occur now smoothly going on with their lives--and even taking on new positions of power in energy positions. When a long-term secret is revealed and Emi's safety is endangered, the family must decide whether they can go on as before, or whether they must invent a new future for themselves. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Fascinating Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels and Six More Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels.

"Success here means knowing how the system works and who pays what and why. It is about figuring out what is worth paying extra for--and what kind of child needs what sort of extra investment." In The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make, Ron Lieber, New York Times columnist of Your Money, attempts to break down what is possibly the most oblique cost-benefit assessment of modern day: the value, price, and cost--he differentiates between the two--of college. Who pays how much to go to college, and why? What are you meant to be getting for your money? Are there ways to cut the ballooning cost of college that's breaking the bank for many American families? Should you let a 17-year-old drive this enormously important process--which can largely determine the timing of your own retirement and may put your family into considerable debt? ...how can I think about this as a skeptical consumer seeking an institutional partner to build a product--a thinking, sociable, working adult--and less as a dutiful, supplicant family? While noting that "...colleges collectively spend something like $1 billion each year to hire...consultants to help them find students, figure out which ones should pay what and then spend a whole lot more to chase the applicants down," Lieber notes hopefully that "after several years of reporting, I have real hope that the schools are slowly hearing the growing cry for more demonstrative proof of value." Lieber explores a range of offerings, opportunities, and proposed benefits and considers their potential worth--while advising the reader as to how to attempt to assess the value for their own prospective student: honors colleges and programs; college abroad; diversity and compatibility of peers and potential partners; women's colleges; career counseling services; improving the odds when planning for grad school; school size; athletic scholarships; experienced teachers; and mental health centers. Lieber outlines which value-proven (or disproven) aspects of a college profile you should be paying attention to beyond the bottom line (for example, how many adjunct professors a college employs; the possibility for mentoring interactions between students and faculty; how much energy and money is spent on showy attention-getters like lazy rivers). By asking how we define success and considering what college is really for (learning, kinship, a credential and a job, personal branding?); exploring parents' feelings that commonly accompany the college choosing and funding process (fear, guilt, snobbery and elitism); considering aspects of the college experience and their worth; suggesting money-saving tips; and offering advice on saving and funding college, Lieber calmly injects facts into the overwhelming, often frenzied, and understandably worrisome "How will we pay, what is the actual cost, and why?" questions surrounding college. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I recently read and reviewed two other interesting and valuable college-admissions books, Who Gets In and Why by Jeffrey Selingo and Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be by Frank Bruni.

"Does a prestigious college make you successful? Or do you do that for yourself?" But for every person whose contentment and fulfillment come from faithfully executing a predetermined script, there are at least ten if not a hundred who had to rearrange the pages and play a part they hadn't expected to, in a theater they hadn't envisioned. Life is defined by little snags and big setbacks; success is determined by the ability to distinguish between the two and rebound from either. And there's no single juncture, no one crossroads, on which everything hinges. I apologize up front for the high density of quotes from author Frank Bruni that follow. My copy of this book is highlighted to within an inch of its life because I found all of this so interesting. I'm actually impressed with how many perfect quotes I didn't include. Anyhoo, I have a senior in high school and I'm currently solidly on the sidelines of college application hustle and bustle, so it seemed like time to finally read these promising, helpful-seeming books about the consideration and application process. In Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, insightful, thorough, down-to-earth New York Times journalist (and UNC alum) Frank Bruni considers the "terrifying and occasionally devastating" process of applying to college--and the dangerous potential belief that a young person's worth could (and often may) feel determined by which schools offer the student admission and which do not. A yes or no from Amherst or Dartmouth or Duke or Northwestern is seen as the conclusive measure of a young person's worth, a binding verdict on the life that he or she has led up until that point, an incontestable harbinger of the successes or disappointments to come. What madness. And what nonsense. For one thing, the admissions game is too flawed and too rigged to be given so much credit. For another, the nature of a student's college experience--the work that he or she puts into it, the skills that he or she picks up, the self-examination that's undertaken, the resourcefulness that's honed--matters more than the name of the institution attended. Bruni explores reassuring data showing that endless colleges can serve as jumping-off points for happy, fulfilling, successful careers and lives. He emphasizes that it's what a young person does with the opportunities available to them that makes the difference. He rejects the idea that there's any "shortage of top-notch scholars who find everything they're looking for and more" at their colleges, despite not all being "the survivors of a screening process as intimidating as Stanford's." Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be offers varied ways to think about college and the increasing pressure and weight put upon the acceptance/rejection equation for a young person. A senior in high school is, after all, entering into a jumping-off point for their lives, rather than realizing the culmination of a life's work at age 17, and the college selection process should reflect the boundless options that exist: "Do the kids getting into their top-choice schools have greater potential? Or do they just have a better understanding of the system and how to work it?" "Somewhere along the way, a school's selectiveness--measured in large part by its acceptance rate--became synonymous with its worth." "...many of the talents and strengths that wind up fueling someone's achievements don't necessarily emerge or play a part in the college application process, and aren't honed in the classrooms of exclusive schools." Bruni reassures the reader by citing successful figures in various professions, many who are well-known, and the wide array of colleges they attended. The majority of their alma maters do not appear on Top 50 lists, and when interviewed, the individuals emphasize the unexpected twists and turns of their lives and the importance of making their own opportunities. They generally eschew the idea that adhering to a more rigidly set out life plan or attending a more exclusive institution might have better led them to their current success. College is a singular opportunity to rummage through and luxuriate in ideas, to give your brain a vigorous workout and your soul a thorough investigation, to realize how very large the world is and to contemplate your desired place in it. Those four years [are] clearly seen as the staging area, not the actual operation; as the throat clearing, not the aria. Bruni also explores research that attempts to separately consider institutions' elite names and their graduates' success stories (or salaries). The likely reality: "at a certain level of intelligence and competence, what drives earnings isn't the luster of the diploma but the type of person in possession of it." He digs into a fascinating 2011 study by Princeton economist professor and former Council of Economic Advisors chairman Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale, an analyst with Mathematics Policy Research. One of their study conclusions: "The average SAT score of schools that rejected a student is more than twice as strong a predictor of the student's subsequent earnings as the average SAT score of the school the student attended." This seems to be because students are "self-sorting" as they apply to colleges, and the most ambitious young people (who often find success in life, including financial success) "are applying to the most elite schools." Therefore the confidence, assertiveness, and follow-through of applying to elite schools is likely "the key to future earnings." Krueger tells Bruni, "Another way to read my results is: A good student can get a good education just about anywhere, and a student who's not that serious about learning isn't going to get much benefit." So much is out of young people's control when it comes to college, yet they may be feeling intense pressure to meet the achievement standards and messages of "if you do X, you deserve/will achieve Y" that have been reinforced by society, parents, and/or peers. There's so much excited, anxious, and confused college talk swirling around today's teens before and as they apply to college, I found the common-sense tone and messages of Bruni's book reassuring and sound. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I recently read another book about college admissions, the fascinating, frustrating, intriguing Who Gets In and Why. Stay tuned for my upcoming review of The Price You Pay for College by Ron Lieber!

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading another college admission book, The Price You Pay for College by Ron Lieber; I'm reading Olivia Hawker's newest historical fiction, scheduled for publication tomorrow, October in the Earth; and I'm listening to The Great Transition, Nick Fuller Googins's postapocalyptic climate-change fiction. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 October in the Earth by Olivia Hawker I love Olivia Hawker's books (see links below), and her newest historical fiction is set 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. But when her husband pushes her too far, Del hops a train and dives into the transient community riding the rails in search of work and survival. Olivia Hawker is also the author of The Fire and the Ore and The Ragged Edge of Night, and One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, which I mentioned in the Greedy Reading List Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing. October in the Earth is scheduled for publication tomorrow. 02 The Great Transition by Nick Fuller Googins Emi Vargas is, frankly, tired of being reminded that her parents saved the world--and weary of the constant comments about how she's so lucky to have been born after the climate crisis. But when some climate criminals are assassinated in public show of retaliation for their crimes, Emi's mother Kristina goes missing, and Emi fears that her mother played a role in the deaths. Emi and her father Larch journey from Greenland to a futuristic, postapocalyptic New York City, ravaged by flooding and storms, to try to find Kristina. This near-future timeline alternates with a past-timeline account of the brutal experiences of Larch and Kristina during The Great Transition. 03 The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make by Ron Lieber Ron Lieber, the New York Times columnist of the section Your Money, attempts to break down what is possibly the most oblique cost-benefit assessment of modern day. Who pays how much, and why? What will you supposedly be getting for your money? Are there ways to cut the ballooning cost of college that's breaking the bank for many American families? Lieber outlines which aspects of a college profile you should be paying attention to beyond the bottom line (for example, how many adjunct professors a college employs; the possibility for mentoring interactions between students and faculty; how much energy and money is spent on showy attention-getters like lazy rivers).

More Witchy Book Love It's the perfect time of year to read a spooky book full of magic and feisty witches galore! If you like witchy books, I hope you'll also check out the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Wonderfully Witchy Stories to Charm You and Six More Wonderfully Witchy Stories to Charm You. Because I love a witchy book, I'm back with more more more witchy titles here, and I'm working on yet another list. What are your favorite witchy stories? 01 The Last Graduate (Scholomance #2) by Naomi Novik This second book in Naomi Novik's Scholomance series builds on book one's dark humor, dangerous forces, and the irresistible attraction between El and Orion. I tried to slow down and savor The Last Graduate. I loved A Deadly Education: Lesson One of the Scholomance by Naomi Novik (I listed it in my Greedy Reading List Six More Wonderfully Witchy Stories to Charm You), and The Last Graduate is the second wonderful book in the Scholomance trilogy. Novik's Scholomance series is set at a magical school with two routes out for its students: a grueling, punishing path to graduation and beyond or, just as likely, death. Danger and darkness lurk around every corner. In book two, El continues to be a fantastically grumpy, powerful, whip-smart, socially awkward, straightforward character I was obsessed with, and I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. In this second book of the trilogy, El is determined to somehow help her classmates escape their deadly school despite the selfish, privilege-driven approach that has dictated life-and-death outcomes for generations. 02 The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave I loved the vivid setting and the strong women who find themselves in the middle of this early seventeenth century witch hunt. The majority of page time is spent showing the tasks of daily life (and almost-claustrophobic interconnectedness) within a tiny, very northern Norwegian community in the early 17th century. But there are witch hunts at hand, and dabbling in the Sami traditions of runes, poppets, or the playing of drums—or simply being a strong-willed woman helping to feed a village by manning fishing boats when the men are all lost—is enough to lead to terrible consequences. Hargrave allows some light into the darkness and cold in the form of love, and important realizations, and some brutal justice, but ignorance and pettiness lead to other horrific and undeserved consequences. For my full review, check out The Mercies. 03 The Manningtree Witches by A.K. Blakemore Blakemore's book--which is based upon witch hunts during the seventeenth-century English Civil War--is smart, shadowy and gothic, often infuriating, and consistently fascinating. In a small town in seventeenth century England, Puritanical fanaticism is opening the door for witch-hunting paranoia. Rebecca West is fatherless, without marriage prospects, and generally defiant--all of which render her vulnerable to suspicion and subject to the various, often harmful whims of men. The Manningtree Witches is smart and thoughtful, and the tone of Blakemore's novel is shadowy and gothic. Rebecca despairs at her situation, yet she is a wonderfully defiant and strong character--her mother is, dangerously, even more so. The Manningtree Witches is infuriating in its recounting of the horrific cruelties and tortures enacted against so many women at the time. But I appreciated the dark humor and strength Blakemore allows the formidable female characters in the book. For my full review, check out The Manningtree Witches. 04 Weyward by Emilia Hart Emilia Hart's debut novel links women in three timelines through blood and a powerful connection to the natural world as they resist male dominance and cruelty in various witchy ways. In Weyward, Emilia Hart's story of witchcraft and the natural world, she explores three timelines of women connected through the ages by power and by society's historical suspicion of strong women. The majority of the male characters in Weyward are unredeemable buffoons, at best ignorant and rigid and at worst neglectful and cruel--and always holding the power, at least before the Weyward women recognize and develop their own. The story features instances of rape, abandonment, witch hunting, and attempted suicide. Yet Altha, Violet, and Kate persist, struggle against the binds society attempts to put upon them, connect powerfully with the natural world, and are linked by blood ties and echoes of hardship and overcoming. I received an audiobook version of this book courtesy of Libro.fm (Libro.fm supports local bookstores!) and Macmillan Audio. The story is wonderfully narrated by Aysha Kala, Helen Keeley, and Nell Barlow. For my full review, please check out Weyward. 05 VenCo by Cherie Dimaline VenCo offers feminist, hard-drinking, foul-mouthed witches bound together by mysterious forces who undergo a quest to secure their survival by fighting a sexy, evil, legendary enemy out to destroy them. Through a series of unexpected events, Lucky St. James is offered a mysterious job at a publishing company...but she and her grandmother are folded into what feels like an oddly tight-knit community of women. I was excited about the premise of a sleek, powerful company serving as a front for a coven of witches pulling the strings (I admit, I was imagining something like the feel of Hench), but the company was not at all a focus of the book. And the witches' extensive, all-knowing abilities extend to many scenarios, but the gaps in their knowledge and powers leave them stumped and are necessary to drive the story. The tone frequently felt geared toward young readers to me, and I had no trouble predicting the twist regarding the missing witch. But Dimaline's entertaining VenCo offers a sexy and mischievous witch hunter, a raucous girls' road trip, heavy-drinking and foul-mouthed witches, the oozing, dark magic of New Orleans, a steady dose of feminism, and a dramatic showdown. 06 Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese Hester is richly imagined historical fiction with connections to themes and characters from The Scarlet Letter. It's magical and intriguing, and I loved it. They say witch, but what do they mean?... Witch is a reason to kill you; witch might be someone to heal you; witch can be the Devil, or witch can be a woman so beautiful she makes you lose your sense. They've got so many ways of calling you a witch, they just change it to how it suits them. In Hester: A Novel, Laurie Lico Albanese imagines the woman who inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter as recent Scottish immigrant Isobel Gamble. Isobel's needlework and the colors she sees in the world are captivatingly described, and the tenuous situation for a woman at the time without a man in the household is conveyed in chilling fashion. I loved the connections to The Scarlet Letter and the book within a book, the witchy focus, the renegade feminism, and the details of life at the time. Click here for my full review of Hester.

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 Kate Morton's newest novel, Homecoming, she explores two different timelines. In one, 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. Jess's grandmother is presented as having been a pivotal force in Jess's life and a formidable figure, but due to her grave illness and her unconscious state, she is only seen in action in the past timeline. In modern day, she serves primarily as a catalyst for Jess's arrival and amateur sleuthing, and it seemed strange not to witness the life-changing grandmother-grandchild interactions in some way. 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. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Morton is also the author of The Clockmaker's Daughter, The Forgotten Garden, The Secret Keeper, The House at Riverton, The Lake House, and The Distant Hours.

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. In Ron Rash's newest novel, The Caretaker, Blackburn Gant is the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery in 1951 Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Blackburn 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 loved the glimpses of rural life and of the specific place and time that Rash crafts so well. The writing is beautifully spare, and the ending is satisfying in multiple ways. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Doubleday Books. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? 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. North Carolina's Rash (he teaches at Western Carolina University) is also the author of other books set in Appalachia: Serena, The World Made Straight, Burning Bright, Above the Waterfall, The Risen, and The Cove.

Despite the many outlandish details of Iris's situation and ongoing secrets, I was taken with the sweet family relationships and the multi-phased wrap-up ending. Iris is a chef who moves to New York City in hopes of a fresh start--and is quickly intimidated by the scope and action of the city. But her new best friend Bobby--along with his partner Robin--takes her under his wing. Then Iris spies a storefront familiar from one of her deceased mother's old photos, a gelato store...where she discovers that they use her exact, closely guarded, definitely secret family recipe. Handsome Gio, son of the ill owner, explains that the store is in danger of being shuttered. Iris may be able to help--if only she could also figure out the store's connection to her mother's past. I know that romantic books sometimes rely upon outlandish setups, and I feel theoretically willing to buy in. I will, after all, happily read stories about talking dragons, or fantastical worlds, or time travel, and I can feel emotionally invested in any of them. But sometimes I have difficulty seeing past what feel like unlikely scenarios in romantic novels. Minor niggles: They only serve vanilla gelato, and people go crazy for it? Really? She traveled with almost nothing...but she did bring her unwieldy, heavy home gelato maker? She's a chef but she's also secretly a YouTube-sensation-level singer...who a sick busker inexplicably wrangles into taking over her vocals as she walks by? The family members abhor secrets...but want Iris to walk away, creating the ultimate eternal secret, rather than share the truth? Characters assure Iris that other characters will be fine emotionally in the end if everyone adheres to their masterminded plans by asserting the juvenile "I promise"? Most importantly, why would Iris not just share the truth about secret one, and how could she possibly go on so long without doing so? And how could keeping secret two serve her well in any scenario? And why would she walk away from a promising love without attempting to address any of this, except for the need to create angst in the story? Characters, please talk to each other! I was frustrated with these aspects of A Winter in New York, but the sweet-as-pie, satisfying, multiple-phased ending was, admittedly, adorable. And the Bobby-Robin relationship as well as the Gio romance had me swooning. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group. A Winter in New York is scheduled for publication today. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Josie Silver is also the author of One Day in December and The Two Lives of Lydia Byrd, a book that appeared on the Greedy Reading List Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading another college admission book, Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be by Frank Bruni; I'm reading Josie Silver's newest romantic fiction, scheduled for publication tomorrow, A Winter in New York; and I'm listening to the first in Sara Donati's historical fiction Wilderness series, Into the Wilderness. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania by Frank Bruni I recently read Who Gets In and Why. I have a senior in high school, so I'm currently solidly on the sidelines of college application hustle and bustle. Nothing like some prompt (ahem!) reading on my part of these promising, helpful-seeming books--which I have long owned--about the consideration and application process! New York Times journalist Frank Bruni and UNC alum considers the "terrifying and occasionally devastating" process of applying to college--and the dangerous potential belief that a young person's worth could feel determined by which schools offer the person admission and which do not. So far Bruni explores reassuring data showing that all kinds of colleges can serve as jumping-off points for happy, fulfilling, successful careers and lives--it's what a young person does with the opportunities available to them that makes the difference. 02 A Winter in New York by Josie Silver Temperatures dropped from horrifically hot to highs in the high 70s some days. Must be time for...the winter books! Iris is a chef who moves to New York City in hopes of a fresh start--and is quickly intimidated by the scope and action of the city. But her new best friend Bobby takes her under his wing to explore the hubbub. Then Iris spies a storefront familiar from one of her mother's old photos, a gelato store...where she discovers that they use her exact family recipe. Handsome Gio, son of the ill owner, explains that the store is in danger of being shuttered. Iris may be able to help--if only she could also figure out the store's connection to her mother's past. Josie Silver is also the author of One Day in December and The Two Lives of Lydia Byrd, a book that appeared on the Greedy Reading List Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group. A Winter in New York is scheduled for publication tomorrow. 03 Into the Wilderness (Wilderness #1) by Sara Donati In this first book of Donati's Wilderness series, it's 1792 and Elizabeth Middleton has traveled from a lush English estate to a wild New York settlement to meet up with her father. She quickly realizes that her father's oblique promises that she could teach school in their new home may have been a ruse to get her to New York--and then push her into considering marriage in order to serve his business interests. But she's determined to follow her own path--and her strong-willed decisions fly in the face of rigid society's expectations concerning women, slavery, and appropriate marriage prospects. And she can't fight her immediate attraction to the no-nonsense Nathaniel Bonner, a white man dressed in Mohawk gear. I'm listening to this as an audiobook. Sara Donati is also the author of the wonderful book The Gilded Hour as well as Where the Light Enters, a book I haven't yet read.

My very favorite Bossy September reads! Here are the six books I most loved reading this past month: time travel, historical fiction, a mother's revisiting her youth, Paulette Jiles's newest gorgeousness, a dystopian gem, and yet another of Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell Victorian mystery. If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear what you think! And I'd also love to hear: what are some of your recent favorite reads? 01 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. 02 A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell #3) by Deanna Raybourn In the third book in the irresistible Veronica Speedwell series, we learn more about Stoker's past, secrets, heartbreak, and motivations; are treated to more fantastic Veronica zingers; and delve into the characters' deep, unconventional connection. In the third installment of Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series, set in 1888 London, Veronica and Stoker seek the whereabouts of a man who went missing during a fruitful archaeological dig in Egypt--at the same time a priceless diadem disappeared. The man who has vanished happens to be Stoker's former expedition partner, who he punched on the street a year ago--and he also happens to be married to Stoker's ex-wife. I adored delving into Stoker's past, and Raybourn offers a number of explanations for some of the previous book's alluded-to personal mysteries and motivations. My favorite element of the Veronica Speedwell series is the character development, and A Treacherous Curse offers additional layers that drew me even more deeply into the world of Veronica and Stoker. Click here for my full review of A Treacherous Curse. 03 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. 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 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 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 newest 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.

The fifth book in the Veronica Speedwell series offers more of Raybourn's magic: witty dialogue, an unorthodox partnership, will-they/won't-they tension, and the solving of dark Victorian-era mysteries that call for bravery, creativity, and a little ruthlessness. Throughout her Veronica Speedwell series, Raybourn proves herself an expert in providing a captivating main character with depth and flaws; a tantalizing attraction/sexual tension between her two main characters, and dialogue that makes me laugh out loud--all set against the backdrop of a Victorian-age mystery. In this fifth book of the series, Veronica and Stoker become involved in a mystery involving a house of debauchery, the heir to the throne, kidnapping, and Jack the Ripper. Raybourn offers dark undercurrents, witty banter, mischief, and also social commentary. A Murderous Relation also explores class and privilege: the story revisits a working-class character from an earlier book--and presents society's moral judgements (as well as Veronica and Stoker's indignance) about the fact that Jack the Ripper's victims were not only vulnerable, but often poor and scrambling desperately and without qualms to make ends meet. Hold on to your hats: the Veronica-Stoker relationship gains clarity at long last! I listened to this as an audiobook, which is wonderfully narrated, as the rest of the series has been, by Angele Masters. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I loved A Curious Beginning, the first book in Deanna Raybourn's feisty Veronica Speedwell series of historical fiction mysteries, as well as the sequels A Perilous Undertaking, A Treacherous Curse, and A Dangerous Collaboration. (There are currently eight books in the series, with a ninth scheduled for publication in 2024.) Raybourn is also the author of the wonderful stand-alone title Killers of a Certain Age.

Josie Silver's lovely book is heartwarming and doesn't feel overly sentimental. Lydia had planned to spend the rest of her life with her childhood sweetheart and fiance, Freddie, in their hometown of Shropshire, England. Now she's coming to terms with the recent and tragic loss of the person she loved and the future she had envisioned. But a medication aimed to help her sleep during this difficult time induces an incredible side effect: when she sleeps after taking it, she exists in a dreamworld where Freddie is still alive. She can see him, smell him, and touch him. He is unaware that this is a second reality for Lydia and unaware of anything odd about this life, and Lydia must fight to not seem as though she is grieving him--this is made easier by how real he seems in this other timeline. At the same time that Lydia is actively living life in her everyday sad reality in which Freddie is gone, she is also seemingly simultaneously living in this dreamworld track of her life alongside Freddie, making decisions, keeping social engagements, fondly fake-remembering her own wedding (an event which in her daylight reality never occurred), and trying to catch up and keep track of the details she's supposed to know. In this alternate sleep reality, life continues branching off from the daytime life in which Freddie is gone; her sleeping life involves its own joys, tragedies, and increasingly complicated set of circumstances that show her realistically plausible challenges and crossroads in the couple's career tracks, senses of responsibility, and paths toward happiness. Meanwhile in daytime reality, Jonah, who was originally Lydia's beloved childhood friend and became Freddie's best friend, is beset by guilt over the circumstances surrounding Freddie's death. He and Lydia try to find their way back to a friendship, a track that is not without hiccups, their own sometimes conflicting paths to coping with their grief, and their complicated feelings about what life and love might look like now. A loyal sister and mother, work friends, and other stand-up characters help round out the story. Josie Silver's lovely book is heartwarming and doesn't feel overly sentimental or emotionally manipulative. The characters' feelings of anger, crushing grief, and hope feel real in both realities she's created. There's joy, and there's sadness, and there are messy routes toward forgiveness and cautious optimism. I love an alternate reality story line, and Silver handles this one deftly in The Two Lives of Lydia Bird; Lydia is suitably frazzled trying to keep track of multiple life tracks and the mix of challenge and happiness in each. I listened to the audiobook, and I really liked Olivia Vinall's narration. What did you think? Silver also wrote One Day in December, which looks like it plays with the idea of "what could have been" in a missed-chances setup that I like the sound of. #alternatereality, #heartwarming, #threestarbookreview

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. "But I'm not being self-deprecating. I'm telling you, I had a genuine talent for being myself, and for a while it worked." In Ann Patchett's newest 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. Did I ever wonder if my parents had been in love with other people, or think of them as having lives before their lives included me? Maybe it's just that my girls are modern, or that Duke was famous, or that we're mired down in work with only the past for distraction. I have no idea. 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. There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you'd never be able to let go? Now you're not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else...until one morning you're picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you've ever wanted in the world. While reading The Dutch House I became frustrated with its characters' relentless rehashing of the past and the way their blame and dissatisfaction was unhappily credited to events surrounding the house of their youth. But both the steady pacing and the unique, sequestered Covid-dictated circumstances of Tom Lake made the characters' delving into the past feel both cozy and wonderfully surprising. Lara shields her daughters from only a few select elements of the story, which begins as a demand for gossipy entertainment from Mom and becomes a meaningful venture into exploring Lara as a complex person. 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. "You'll tell us, won't you?" Nell says to me. "You promise?" I tell her yes, I promise, but she isn't going to like it. With the girls wondering what might have been and initially bemoaning Lara's lack of ambition, Lara is more content than ever in her settled life far from stardom, performing, and rubbing elbows with famous people. The story of Duke is far from wholly jolly, and the fascinating, somewhat tragic complexity of his life is evident. I loved the twist in the story and the girls' reactions to it. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Patchett is also the author of This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, State of Wonder, Run, Bel Canto, The Dutch House, The Magician's Assistant, These Precious Days, and other books.

The slim novel Blue Hour explores ambivalence about motherhood, unflinching details of the experience of miscarriage, relationship stresses, and issues surrounding race in a stream-of-consciousness account from a nameless main protagonist. Sometimes I settle in to read a book from my lengthy To-Be-Read list without recalling much (or sometimes anything) about the premise, trusting my own past taste in placing the book in my Want to Read category. In the case of Blue Hour, I missed the very clear note "A Novel" on the cover while downloading the audiobook in a rush, then I began listening to the book's relentless, churning roller coaster of hopes, dashed dreams, and strong feelings of ambivalence. I initially thought I was hearing a narrator read a memoir. (This was likely at least partially due to the book's stream of consciousness, which sets a striking pace and tone.) Harrison's nameless (fictional) narrator is coping with multiple miscarriages, fertility treatments, and the stress of these on her marriage. (Note that the main protagonist's miscarriages are described here in unflinching detail.) She's a photographer with mixed feelings about the idea of becoming a mother, and when she finds that a student in one of her classes is fighting for his life following police brutality, her own fears about bringing a Black-Japanese child into the world feel exacerbated. Her disconnect from her (white, Jewish) husband in terms of her deep apprehension related to a future baby's race and safety in today's world is an added complication. This slim novel (160 pages) explores the immediate, visceral experiences of trying to conceive a baby, of losing a baby, and the growing physical and emotional distance from a partner as losses and uncertainty mount. The story takes a brief but powerful dip into the vast issues of race and policing in America, then the narrator is recognized for dedicatedly sitting by the bedside of her ailing student before a hopeful element for her own future is introduced later in the book. I loved the way the main-protagonist photographer viewed others around her and pieced together what felt like deep truths from the details her artist's eye picked up on. The tone and pacing are often raw and feverish as Harrison digs into complicated issues intertwined with worry and grief. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Blue Hour is Tiffany Clarke Harrison's debut. She lives in North Carolina.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Ron Rash's newest novel, to be published tomorrow, The Caretaker; I'm listening to Tiffany Clarke Harrison's novel about motherhood and loss, Blue Hour; and I'm listening to the fifth installment in Deanna Raybourn's irresistible Veronica Speedwell Victorian-era mystery series, A Murderous Relation. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 The Caretaker by Ron Rash In Ron Rash's newest novel, The Caretaker, Blackburn Gant is the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery in 1951 Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Blackburn 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, Blackburn must 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. 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. North Carolina's Rash (he teaches at Western Carolina University) is also the author of other books set in Appalachia: Serena, The World Made Straight, Burning Bright, Above the Waterfall, The Risen, and The Cove. I received a prepublication edition of this book, scheduled for publication tomorrow, courtesy of NetGalley and Doubleday Books. 02 Blue Hour: A Novel by Tiffany Clarke Harrison I'm listening to Tiffany Clarke Harrison's Blue Hour as an audiobook. Harrison's narrator is coping with multiple miscarriages, fertility treatments, and the stress of these on her marriage. She's a photographer with mixed feelings about the idea of becoming a mother, and when a student in one of her classes fights for his life fighting police brutality, her fears about bringing a Black-Japanese child into the world feel even more complicated. The book is written in a second-person stream of consciousness, which is taking a little bit of getting used to. This slim novel is packing a punch. 03 A Murderous Relation (Veronica Speedwell #5) by Deanna Raybourn I loved A Curious Beginning, the first book in Deanna Raybourn's feisty Veronica Speedwell series of historical fiction mysteries, as well as the sequels A Perilous Undertaking, A Treacherous Curse, and A Dangerous Collaboration. (There are currently eight books in the series, with a ninth scheduled for publication in 2024.) Raybourn is masterful at providing a captivating main character with depth and flaws; a tantalizing attraction/sexual tension between her two main characters, and dialogue that makes me laugh out loud--all set against the backdrop of a Victorian-age mystery. In this fifth book of the series, Veronica and Stoker become involved in a mystery involving a house of debauchery, the heir to the throne, kidnaping, and Jack the Ripper. I'm listening to this audiobook, which is wonderfully narrated, as the rest of the series has been, by Angele Masters. Raybourn is also the author of the wonderful stand-alone title Killers of a Certain Age.

More Time-Travel Adventures I love a book that plays with time--the possibilities of trying things a different way, the second chances, the peeks into what might have been or what really occurred. My first Greedy Reading List of books that focused on this theme was Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore, which I followed with Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore. You might also like the books on the list Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories. Here are six more novels across genres that kept me hooked on their time-travel stories. Have you read any of these? If so, I'd love to hear what you thought. Do you have any favorite books that involve time travel? 01 See You Yesterday by Rebecca Lynn Solomon Rachel Lynn Solomon crafts another sweet, quirky, funny, romantic young adult story that plays with time and is centered around irresistibly imperfect characters. In See You Yesterday, Rachel Lynn Solomon explores the first day of college for Barrett Bloom, who desperately needs a fresh start. But on day one, Barrett's ruthlessly straightforward manner, defensive way of keeping others at a distance, and habit of speaking harsh truths before she stops to think seem destined to lead her to misstep and thwart her own chances of success and happiness. After being involved in multiple disasters in only her first day of classes, she fears college may become a ruination on par with the end of her high school career. She wakes up the next day...and finds that she's reliving her first day of college. She has the incredible chance to make the same decisions or to consider her choices and do things differently. The following morning, she gets yet another chance at reliving her first day. And there's an interesting boy she keeps running into, regardless of which paths and options she alters. He keeps challenging her and seems to know her somehow. Barrett can't decide if this time loop is a dream come true--or a living nightmare. I love Rachel Lynn Solomon's stories, and I loved this story of Barrett and Miles and youthful adventure and finding themselves and discovering how to be vulnerable and ALL of it. Hook, line, and sinker. Click here for my full review of See You Yesterday. 02 The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson Johnson offers a wonderfully imperfect heroine and her fascinating journeys through the multiverse, her various lives, and her alternate selves in this science fiction debut. Cara is one of a dwindling number of traversers. She can travel through the multiverse, but only to worlds where another version of herself no longer exists. Her other selves seem uncannily apt to die, so Cara is able to visit 372 other Earths where her counterparts are no longer living. But when one of Cara's eight remaining selves mysteriously dies while she is world walking, shocking secrets are revealed that connect various worlds and shake Cara to her core. She must cobble together the various bits of knowledge and savviness she's gained through tracing the steps of her many other selves if she's going to stand any chance of outsmarting the canny and intelligent Adam Bosch--a man who will otherwise almost certainly be the source of her undoing. Cara isn't superhuman; she's imperfect, sometimes selfish, tough, and occasionally she's wonderfully vulnerable. I loved her as an unlikely heroine, and I loved that it wasn't too easy for her to attempt to address complex issues within the multiverse. For my full review of this book, please see The Space Between Worlds. 03 In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren In a Holidaze is a romantic holiday time twist with sexy interludes and a reliably happy ending. Twentysomething Mae is spending the holidays yet again with her parents' college friends and their families. She's not satisfied in her job, she's unwillingly single, she still lives with her parents--and she just kissed the wrong boy, the younger brother of her true obsession. In despair about having had a rotten holiday and realizing that future holidays at her favorite place in the world are now in jeopardy, Mae makes a plea to the universe to show her what would truly make her happy. Suddenly she's plunged back in time to begin the holiday anew and try to get things right, Groundhog Day-style. I fought a little irritation at the start with what felt like too-cute in-process inside jokes between the characters--I'd rather watch interpersonal intimacies unfold than be thrust into scenes serving as shorthand for "this is idyllic and you should love it." Click here for my full review of In a Holidaze. 04 One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle Rebecca Serle's love letter to Italy plays with time to allow a grieving young woman to know her mother at her same age, inspiring heartwarming realizations. Katy is deeply grieving while questioning her own life, including her marriage to a kind man. She is determined to take the trip to Italy she and her mother had optimistically planned during her mom's illness, and she's set on revisiting the places her mom has raved about since Katy was a child. Katy also begins to recognize what the reader might notice early on: that her intense lifetime reliance on her mother in all areas of her life has left her without the benefit of independence, decision-making, and the strength that autonomy (and mistakes) build in a person. When Katy wakes up one day faced with her actual own mother standing in her hotel lobby in the prime of her youth, she wonders if she's hallucinating. But it all seems so real. As days pass, Katy realizes she seems to have been been gifted with an opportunity to know her mother in a way that seemed impossible. And if she can cope with her own sadness and dive into the unfathomable experience, she just might learn valuable lessons about herself and her own character too. For my full review, check out One Italian Summer. 05 Chosen Ones (Chosen Ones #1) by Veronica Roth Sloane is a perfectly imperfect heroine and things aren't entirely what they seem in Roth's first novel for adults. Things aren’t entirely what they seem in Veronica Roth’s version of Earth in Chosen Ones, both in terms of heroes' and villains’ roles as well as these characters’ understanding (and gaps in understanding) the situation at hand. Sloane is a perfectly imperfect heroine. She’s expected to play the games of the media and stick fast to the identity that her fame as a Chosen One has thrust upon her. But she is incapable of BS and full of rage, fear, unquenched revenge fantasies, vulnerability, and the sometimes inconvenient drive to live truthfully and fully. Roth could have potentially pulled back on the messy, complicated, partial resolution among multiple worlds toward the end for a simpler step forward but didn’t take an easier way out. I’m not sure where it leaves us for the second book, but I can’t wait to find out. For my full review of this book, see Chosen Ones. 06 Goddess in the Machine by Lora Beth Johnson Robots, time travel, teen angst, and this gorgeous cover. Yes to all of this. I didn't anticipate the twists Johnson provides, and I was delighted by each of them. Goddess in the Machine is more than just a gorgeous cover. Lora Beth Johnson had me hooked immediately by the premise and Andra's voice. Teenage Andra finally wakes up after being cryogenically preserved for a century-long journey to a new planet. She's a little creaky and sore, sure, but she's ready to be reunited with the team, which includes her mother and the rest of her family, plus many others involved in the complex project. They'll begin the work of bravely populating and building a new life on this planet. Except...Andra soon realizes she wasn't sleeping for 100 years. She was asleep for 1,000. The people, terrain, and language are not what she studied for or expected, everyone she once knew has already lived and died--oh, and the general population, whoever they are, thinks she's a goddess, and they've been waiting excitedly for her to wake up and save them. I didn't anticipate the twist/double twist here, and I loved being surprised again and again. For my full review, please see Goddess in the Machine.

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. The people in this county had not been like this before, if he could recall it correctly--this chaos, this land of criminals and casual murder. 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. How long do you keep it up, how far do you go to find a man like this? The mayhem of lawlessness and martial law means that crimes are going unchecked all over. Chenneville single-mindedly travels through the Reconstruction-era United States on a relentless search for A.J. Dodd, who has slaughtered various innocents and, Chenneville believes, requires Chenneville to exact justice upon him. It occurred to him that this was what normal people did. That this was ordinary and common and that these ordinary, common things were attained at great cost; they were actually fragile and could be destroyed even in a matter of days by artillery, by riots, by hatred. Along the way, he encounters a colorful cast of characters who either renew his faith in humanity or make him deeply question it. Chenneville's vengeance spurs him on, and he pushes forward despite encountering setbacks, grave injuries, a US Marshal's determined search for John himself, the distraction of a clever, brave woman, and the pain of losing those dear to him. 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. They regarded each other silently. Something had happened, something he had not wanted to happen. Death and illness had brought them together as if these things were orbits and they heavenly bodies flung into certain trajectories to accompany each other through trials, troubles, and perhaps even times of happiness. Minor note: I love that toward the end of the story, the text briefly references Captain Kidd from Jiles's News of the World ("...a man had come who read aloud from newspapers gathered from the entire world over, including stories of polar explorers and sinking ships in the Atlantic Ocean..."). This was heartbreaking and lovely historical fiction from Paulette Jiles. I loved it. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and William Morrow & Company. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? 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.

Emma Makepeace returns with new enemies in her sights--but this time she must work undercover on a Russian oligarch's yacht without MI6 contact. She faces unknown dangers and heartbreaking betrayal in this fast-paced novel. Ava Glass's Alias Emma was a fast-paced cat-and-mouse chase across London and through an underground warren of tunnels, all part of an elaborate plan to avoid Russian murderers. It was also a book that hit the spot and suited my mood perfectly when I read it. Emma Makepeace returns in the second book in the series, The Traitor, and when one thing leads to another, Emma finds herself working undercover on a ruthless Russian oligarch's yacht. But Emma is cut off from tracking, useful intel, and protection from MI6. She's got just days to figure out what the dangerous men are up to--and these are men who feel accountable to no one and well above the law. Oh, and someone who's supposed to be on her side may have revealed her true identity to those who want her dead. Glass moves the story along in entertaining fashion. The novel references elements from book one, such as Emma's familial career inspiration, but it isn't necessary to have first read Alias Emma in order to dive into this story. I love a spy book, a book about Russia, and a feisty, strong young female protagonist, and The Traitor offers all three. I wasn't shocked by the story's twist, but Glass didn't make me feel manipulated or red-herring me to death along the way. I received a prepublication edition of this book, published yesterday, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group--Ballantine, Bantam. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? You can check out my review of Alias Emma here. You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Books about Brave Female Spies and Six More Books about Brave Female Spies.

In this installment of Veronica and Stoker's Victorian England mystery-solving, they enter a sinister, gothic scene--and despite spending much of the book keeping their distance, their relationship ultimately progresses in a significant, intriguing manner. I loved A Curious Beginning, the first book in Deanna Raybourn's feisty Veronica Speedwell series of historical fiction mysteries, as well as the second book, A Perilous Undertaking, and the third, A Treacherous Curse. Raybourn is masterful at providing a captivating main character with depth and flaws; a tantalizing will-they-won't-they tension that doesn't feel like a tease, and dialogue that makes me laugh out loud--all set against the backdrop of a Victorian-age mystery. In this fourth book of the series, Veronica is lured by the promise of an elusive butterfly and an invitation from Lord Templeton-Vane, her partner Stoker's brother, to a gothic, gloomy estate on an island--and an unsolved disappearance that just may have been a murder. I was initially disappointed that Veronica and Stoker spend (a fast-forwarded) six months apart at the start of the story, which picks up immediately following book three's events. Where were the banter and sexual tension and match-up of will and intellect between Stoker and Veronica that are my favorite aspects of the series? When Veronica returns from a long journey, partially undertaken in order to avoid Stoker and the heartache and brokenness due to his ex-wife's cruelties...there remains a lack of banter and sexual tension. Boo, hiss! But at long last, the funny and tantalizing tension reemerges, spurred along by Lord Templeton-Vane's flirtations with Veronica, the healing tincture of time, and Stoker and Veronica's irresistible attraction. And ahem, there's also a mystery to solve. It wasn't my favorite of the series mysteries thus far, but I enjoyed the dark, gothic feel of twisting passages, hidden nooks, and sinister secrets. And in this installment of the series, Raybourn allows for The Situation Between Veronica and Stoker to progress in significant, satisfying ways. Eeeep! Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Raybourn is also the author of the wonderful stand-alone title Killers of a Certain Age.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading to Ann Patchett's newest novel, Tom Lake; I'm reading Ava Glass's newest spy thriller, to be published tomorrow, The Traitor; and I'm listening to the fourth installment in Deanna Raybourn's irresistible Veronica Speedwell Victorian-era mystery series, A Dangerous Collaboration. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Tom Lake by Ann Patchett In Ann Patchett's newest novel, Tom Lake, Lara's three daughters reunite at the family's Northern Michigan orchard. They beg her to share the story of her youthful romance and acting job alongside the now-famous Peter Duke at the theater company Tom Lake. But when Lara shares the story of a life lived before her children existed, her daughters are led to consider their own lives and their relationship with their mother. Patchett is also the author of This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, State of Wonder, Run, Bel Canto, The Dutch House, The Magician's Assistant, These Precious Days, and other books. 02 The Traitor (Alias Emma #2) by Ava Glass Ava Glass's Alias Emma was a fast-paced cat-and-mouse chase across London and through an underground warren of tunnels in an elaborate effort to avoid Russian murderers. It was also a book that hit the spot and suited my mood perfectly when I read it. Emma Makepeace returns in the second book in the series, The Traitor, and when one thing leads to another, Emma finds herself undercover on a ruthless Russian oligarch's yacht. But someone who's supposed to be on her side may have revealed her true identity to those who want her dead. I received a prepublication edition of this book, scheduled for publication tomorrow, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group--Ballantine, Bantam. 03 A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4) by Deanna Raybourn I loved A Curious Beginning, the first book in Deanna Raybourn's feisty Veronica Speedwell series of historical fiction mysteries, as well as the second book, A Perilous Undertaking, and the third, A Treacherous Curse. Raybourn is masterful at providing a captivating main character with depth and flaws; a tantalizing will-they-won't-they tension that doesn't feel like a tease, and dialogue that makes me laugh out loud--all set against the backdrop of a Victorian-age mystery. In this fourth book of the series, Veronica is lured by the promise of an elusive butterfly and an invitation from Lord Templeton-Vane, her partner Stoker's brother, to an estate on an island--and an unsolved disappearance that just may have been a murder. Raybourn is also the author of the wonderful stand-alone title Killers of a Certain Age.

More Revenge Fantasies...and Revenge Enacted Mwaa haa ha! Whether it's about righting wrongs, saving face, renegade justice, or playing the long game, I love a book about enacting revenge. My first Greedy Reading List of books that focused on this theme was Six Satisfying Novels about Revenge. But I have even more Greedy Reading Lists' worth of books I've loved that have this irresistible setup for a story. Here are six more novels across genres that kept me hooked on their revenge-filled storylines. Have you read any of these? If so, I'd love to hear what you thought. Do you have any favorite books that involve revenge? 01 Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo When tough, stubborn Alex Stern is offered a new start after surviving a mysterious multiple homicide, she becomes an unlikely member of the Yale freshman class. But the darkness of her past may only be matched by the danger of the magic and rituals being used by the secret societies she's meant to be monitoring. Alex dropped out of high school and into a world of shady drug dealers, cruelty, and taking desperate measures to stay alive. But none of that broke her. She was the only survivor of a gruesome multiple homicide, and now she's the most surprising member of the Yale freshman class. Alex was handpicked by unknown benefactors to track the activities of Yale's secret societies--including the magical forces they use and questionable rituals they regularly take part in. She soon learns how nefarious their intentions are--and how much danger she is in because of her involvement. Ninth House is sometimes dark, especially as related to male-female power dynamics and sex, and the story undercovers secret societies, explores betrayal, and follows faulted characters on kind-of-noble quests. It's intriguing, and I was definitely hooked for the second book in the series. The second book in this series is Hell Bent. I mentioned Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone series in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series. She also wrote the King of Scars duology (you can find my review of book two, Rule of Wolves, here). For my full review of this book, check out Ninth House. 02 Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman I loved this young adult Western, and not just because of its amazing cover. Kate is a tough young woman posing as a male cowboy. She's got revenge on her mind, and she and her unlikely band of allies aren't afraid to shoot first and ask questions later. But Kate also slowly, reluctantly finds a little bit of love to soften her hardened heart. In Vengeance Road, Erin Bowman offers up great action along with what I thought were perfect amounts of self-actualization and character development, without ever being heavy-handed. Vengeance Road is a rough and tumble story with enough suspense that I wasn't ever confident that the main characters would emerge alive. I wished a little more care had been taken with the resolutions at the end, and I would have liked some more justification for characters' decisions late in the book, but I loved this. The cowboy dialect didn't distract, although it was notably distinct throughout. Vengeance Road is the first book in Bowman's Vengeance Road duology; Retribution Rails is the second. For my full review of this book, please see Vengeance Road. This book appears on the Greedy Reading List Six Great Historical Fiction Novels Set in the American West. You might also like the books on the list Six More Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West. 03 Pretty Things by Janelle Brown Brown kept me happily turning the pages to see who would get what was coming to them in this cross, double-cross, twisty thriller. A seasoned and a rookie con artist together set their sights on taking advantage of a spoiled socialite—and one of the cons aims to right some wrongs in two of the characters' shared (but mysterious and complicated) history along the way. Not everyone's motivations are clear or remain constant, which allows for the twists and turns. The characters were largely unsympathetic, yet Janelle Brown kept me happily turning the pages of Pretty Things to see who would get what was coming to them. The resolution was a little neat but also satisfying and made me happy. Cross, double-cross! This book really hit the spot for me. NetGalley and Random House provided me with a prepublication edition of this book. Click here for my full review of Pretty Things. 04 Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn This fun, darkly funny, feminist story about a retiring female team of elite assassins was the right book at the right time for me: entertainment in the perfect combination of action and suspense, loyal friendship, clever plotting, and the promise of love. The Museum is an organization that operates outside of governmental control, relying on various trained elite killing forces. Originally formed in order to hunt down and rid the world of lingering Nazis, the Museum's mission has evolved to focus on taking out carefully chosen bad guys of all stripes--drug dealers, human traffickers, arms dealers, and the like. After four decades of successfully ridding the world of cruelty and destruction one person at a time, the Sphinxes (Billie, Natalie, Helen, and Mary Alice) are set to retire. They're not sure what they'll do with themselves once the work that has shaped them into who they are--both separately and together--is over, but they're getting used to the idea of collecting their pensions and figuring out the rest. But when the four friends are sent on an all-expenses-paid vacation to mark their retirement, a Museum associate attempts to do them in. The women realize they may know too much about where the bodies are buried--literally--to be allowed to drift away into the world without a fight. In Killers of a Certain Age, Raybourn has crafted an irresistibly fun, clever, feminist caper that had me hooked the whole way through. I loved the women's complicated bonds, their crafty planning, their fights for justice, and their ability to remain flexible and reinvent themselves. I love a spy/assassin book and a book that treats dark subjects playfully without being silly. For my full review, check out Killers of a Certain Age. 05 One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus I suspected each of the main players at one point or another and couldn't wait for the big reveal for this young adult mystery, the first in a series. Five loosely linked Bayview High students walk into detention on Monday afternoon, all busted for having phones in class. The phones in question didn't belong to them, so none of them should even be there. But before they can put together the pieces and determine who might have wanted to get them all together in that room, one of them is dead. The gossip site run by the deceased student made him detested and feared. And he was about to publish some juicy, devastating tidbits about each of his detention partners. Did one of them want so desperately to stop him that they would kill to keep him quiet? I suspected each of the main players at one point or another and couldn't wait for the big reveal. The parents of the disparate teens were significantly faulted characters, and the kids are left to find their own ways emotionally or financially or morally. Bronwyn, Nate, Addy, and Cooper largely feel like stereotypes when the story begins, but as they become more open and honest with each other, they each grow into what feels like their authentic selves. For my full review of this book, see One of Us Is Lying. 06 Fingersmith by Sarah Waters In this gothic Victorian tale, Waters offers a slow build to heartbreak, twists and double twists, hesitant attempts at love, and, finally, clarity and satisfying revenge. Sue Trinder is a teenage orphan, the daughter of a hanged murderess who tries to live up to her fearless mother's bravery and strength. She's being raised in a household of cheats, thieves, and generally crooked characters. Yet she's been largely sheltered from the evils of the underbelly of Victorian London by her unofficial, doting adoptive mother, Mrs. Sucksby. But when one of their group, Gentleman, comes up with a large-scale con, suddenly the makeshift family's potential fortune depends heavily on Sue. She's asked to play the role of maid to an unassuming, wealthy young woman in a dastardly plot to take the woman's inheritance and leave her to rot in an insane asylum. I wasn't certain how Waters would resolve the layers of deceit, secrets, and desires for revenge at play here. The story offers heartbreak, twists and double twists, hesitant attempts at unorthodox love, and, finally, clarity and satisfying revenge. Waters is also the author of Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, and The Night Watch. I'm eager to read these as well. Please click here for my full review of Fingersmith.

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. Hypotheticals, impossibilities. The dreams of youth rarely come to pass, I remind myself. We were not the first young lovers to fail at love in the end. Early in the story, Learned by Heart very much reminded me of A Little Princess. That was one of my favorite books when I was young, and within Learned by Heart, the concern with classism, money, and control, the living in the attic, the stern headmistress, and the links to India made me feel as though this was a grown-up version of the loose framework of Frances Hodgson Burnett's story. But as Learned by Heart progresses, 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--or if it were made plain to the other students, who are all vying to avoid formal reprimands and seem prone to sacrifice each other to the teachers' and headmistress' wrath. When the two are separated by circumstances, Lister moves on to explore long-term romances with various of their mutual friends, breaking Raine's heart a little more each time. The book is partially epistolary, and the letters involved are primarily written by Raine (who is in a mental institution) to Lister. Donoghue's Author's Note explains that while more of Raine's letters survived so that they inspire the correspondence in the book, Lister was in fact frequently writing back to her former love--but many of Raine's belongings were lost. The unraveling of Raine's mental state on the page is striking--but she does have "lucid moments" and periods of calm. 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. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Emma Donoghue is also the author of Room, The Pull of the Stars (which I loooved; it was one of My Twelve Favorite Books of the Year when I read it), and other books.

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. Why strangers needed to ask about a person's appearance, gender, or physical makeup at all he would likely never know. 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. Yet he remains hopeful for his future--and begins to believe that despite the constancy of his fight for survival, he might even be falling in love. I love a dystopian story, and this setup as well as the unorthodox relationship at the heart of World Running Down drew me in. Osric is an AI made to inhabit an android body (ahem, "meat suit") in order to find Val and Ace and offer them a lucrative job: to track down a group of missing android escort-prostitutes and return them to their grim existence as forced sex workers. But the android escorts are beginning to show signs of self-awareness, which shouldn't be possible--and which could change basic laws, the thinking around artificial intelligence, and the way the current civilization thinks about its foundation. He'd known the cities were like this.... But it was something else to see it.... He'd do whatever he needed to in order to gain access to this abundance.... And he hated himself for it. Society's split between the haves and have-nots is as pronounced as ever in Hess's novel, and literal barriers keep the struggling less fortunate outside the glittering cities full of technology, opportunity, and wealth. 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. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? 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. Al Hess is also the author of Yours Celestially, Key Lime Sky, and the series Hep Cats of Boise.

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. Ursa's neglect of her own son Ray causes him to flee--vowing to cut ties with Ursa forever. But Ursa's ability to travel through time has, unbeknownst to all, passed on to Ray's child Opal. A meeting of grandmother and grandchild could change everything forever. Ursa's brokenness and bitterness seem to stem directly from her terrible childhood abuse, yet she is far from a sympathetic character. She is petty, self-important, and rigid. The rift she forces into her own family is heartbreaking but doesn't feel fixable. 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 is satisfying as well. I received an audiobook edition of this book courtesy of Libro.fm and Recorded Books, Inc. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Lepucki is also the author of the novels California, Woman Number 17, There's No Place Like Home, and If You're Not Yet Like Me. If you're intrigued by time-travel stories, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore, Six More Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore, and Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Edan Lepucki's science-fiction time-travel novel, Time's Mouth; I'm reading Paulette Jiles's newest historical fiction novel, Chenneville; and I'm reading Al Hess's dystopian novel World Running Down. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki 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 shaped her. When she flees to remote California, her ability to travel through memory to revisit the past secures her a revered role in the counterculture 1950s community that builds around her. A friend's borrowed, rambling home becomes a house for unwed mothers and mothers-to-be, with the women on site treating Ursa as a goddess and the children being horrifically neglected, sometimes with fatal results. Ursa's own son Ray is shown some favoritism but is kept in the dark about his mother's ability. Her careless neglect causes him to flee--cutting ties with Ursa forever. But Ursa's ability to travel through time has, unbeknownst to all, passed on to Ray's child Opal. A meeting of grandmother and grandchild could change everything forever. I received an audiobook edition of this book courtesy of Libro.fm and Recorded Books, Inc. 02 Chenneville: A Novel of Murder, Loss, and Vengeance by Paulette Jiles 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 myself. In Jiles's Chenneville, titular character John Chenneville is a former Union soldier who has spent a year since the war ended 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. He single-mindedly travels through Reconstruction-era United States on a search for A.J. Dodd, who has slaughtered innocents and, Chenneville believes, requires Chenneville to exact justice upon him. I received a prepublication edition of this book, scheduled for publication tomorrow, courtesy of NetGalley and William Morrow & Company. Paulette Jiles also wrote News of the World, Simon the Fiddler, and The Color of Lightning. 03 World Running Down by Al Hess Al Hess's World Running Down tracks the adventures, challenges, unexpected meetings, and joys of a trans salvager in a 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, facing danger from pirates, cyborg animals, certain AI beings, and even his own salvaging partner. Yet he remains hopeful for his future--and begins to believe that despite the constancy of his fight for survival, he might even be falling in love.

My Very Favorite Bossy Summer Reads! I had a great reading summer, so I had a tough time deciding on the six books I most loved reading during the heat of the past few months. I loved the books here so much, I rated each of them 4.5 or 5 Bossy stars. You might also want to check out the books on my spring Greedy Reading List Six of My Favorite Reads of the Year So Far. If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear what you think! And I'd also love to hear: what were some of your favorite reads this summer? 01 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. This book made it onto the recent Greedy Reading List Six More Great Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories. 02 Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister Gillian 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 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. Can she shift the future by changing the past? Wrong Place, Wrong Time offers a smart, mind-bending structure that is complex and interesting but not difficult to follow. McAllister develops her characters fully and uses the time jumps wonderfully--to explore relationships, truth-telling and lies, assumptions, terrible realizations, and heartwarming reassurances. For my full review of this book, check out Wrong Place, Wrong Time. If you're intrigued by time-travel stories, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore, Six More Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore, and Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories. 03 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. 04 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. 05 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. 06 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.

This third book in McManus's young-adult mystery series keeps the surprises coming, ties new twists into early events from the series, and strengthens the bonds between the Bayside sleuth friends. I listened to this third installment in Karen McManus's young adult One of Us Is Lying mystery series. Over the course of the past two books, the Bayview Four solved mysteries and established their own innocence in the face of suspected wrongdoing. In this third installment, McManus offers the established characters of Maeve, Nate, Phoebe, Bronwyn, and Knox from book one--along with other old favorites and some fresh faces--in a new set of intertwined, mysterious circumstances. But when someone unexpected comes to town, our sleuths realize that not everyone is who they say they are; old mysteries come to light and complicate things dramatically; and yet again the young people might be the only ones who can serve up the justice that others so desperately seem to deserve. I was highly entertained by the side-note recaps of the events of books one and two, which sound wonderfully outrageous when condensed into a few sentences. Character development isn't the key to book three; One of Us Is Back primarily progresses the plot of the series and introduces some twists that tie into past events and established characters. One Of Us Is Back offers more Bayview intrigue and young love, family conflict and growth, and builds upon the bedrock of friendship and loyalty. The many points of view of the story are clearly delineated in the audiobook by the various narrators. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? The first two books in the One of Us Is Lying series are One of Us Is Lying and One of Us Is Next. McManus also wrote Two Can Keep a Secret, The Cousins, and You’ll Be the Death of Me.

Niall Howard's debut is a noir story about the underbelly of life in a post-World-War-II circus, with a disgruntled clown, formerly a headlining trapeze star, at its center. I listened to Niall Howell's debut, Only Pretty Damned, noir historical fiction set behind the scenes at Rowland's World Class Circus. I love a story set at a circus, and this is a dark take with lots of seedy characters. In Only Pretty Damned, Toby is a former celebrated trapeze artist, but carelessness cost him his headlining spot, and now he's a grumpy clown who's becoming more and more bitter, petty, egotistical, scheming, and greedy. Toby is chillingly without remorse and evolves into an almost purely vengeful person, manipulating his actions and remarks according to who's around him. Toby is not a sympathetic character-- he eventually begins to seem like a sociopath--and Howell's storytelling is stark and feels like a carefully measured black-and-white movie. I wasn't sure whether Toby was going to enact revenge on those he felt wronged by or if he'd get the comeuppance of a lifetime, and I was glad to be unsure about where the story was headed. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I received an audiobook edition of this book courtesy of Libro.fm and NeWest Press. You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Spooky, Gothic Tales.

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. Her aunt always said the apartment was a "pinch in time," where timelines blurred together. Now Clementine must figure out if her heart is strong enough to cope with losing the unlikely love she's finally found. 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. But much of the story felt too convenient to me, and at times the book seemed like it needed a careful copyedit. Clementine doesn't believe in the time slip, but when she's faced with its reality, she seems to somehow intuitively understand the rules--although they weren't clear to me. For example, she slips back in time, back to the present, then a few weeks later to the past again, and somehow the same amount of time seems to have passed in the present? And her encounters with others in the apartment at different points in time--as well as her ability to remain in that time--involve complex rules she seemed to somehow largely be aware of. There's an initial “Lemon” nickname mention--admittedly, during a harried moment, yet later Clementine doesn’t remember this striking coincidence when faced with the nickname again, not does she recall the voice of the person who uttered it. Some of her aunt's many sayings and life rules felt initially unclear. For example, Clementine's aunt "only ever had two rules in this apartment--one, always take your shoes off by the door. And two: never fall in love." But her aunt also says one rule of life is "to never forget to fall in love whenever you can find it because love is nothing if not a matter of timing." This seems like a conflicting, sweeping piece of general advice. Later, it's mentioned that this advice applies to life outside of the apartment. I was probably irrationally annoyed at having to sort out this seeming inconsistency. Other life rules and quotes from her aunt frequently felt so whimsical as to be absurd. “My aunt used to tell me that summer nights in the city were meant to be impossible." Uh...what? She also always said "to chase the moon." I feel like a little bit of a jerk at how much these cutesy "rules of living" annoyed me. 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. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? 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.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Emma Donoghue's newest historical fiction, Learned by Heart, set at an 1800s women's boarding school in England and based upon a real-life figure; I'm listening to the third installment in Karen McManus's One of Us Is Lying series, One of Us Is Back; and I'm listening to Niall Howell's debut, Only Pretty Damned, which is noir historical fiction set behind the scenes of a circus. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue So far, Learned by Heart is giving me major Little Princess vibes...that was one of my absolute favorite books when I was young, and this is like a grown-up-reader version. I'm in love! Donoghue can apparently write about anything, and here, she chooses to build a story around the long-researched, real-life figure of Anne Lister. In Learned by Heart, Lister and her boarding school roommate Eliza Raine become unlikely best friends, then fall in a deep, forbidden love. Raine was a wealthy orphan sent from India to England at age 6 and grew up in the cold, strict Manor School in the early 1800s. Lister arrives as a wild, curious, uncontrollable, brilliant tomboy--and is paired as roommates with Raine in the drafty dormitory attic. Emma Donoghue is also the author of Room, The Pull of the Stars (which I loooved; it was one of My Twelve Favorite 2020 Books), and other books. I received a prepublication edition of this book, published last week, courtesy of NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company. 02 One of Us Is Back by Karen M. McManus I'm listening to this third installment in Karen McManus's One of Us Is Lying series. Over the course of the past two books, the Bayview Four solved mysteries and established that they were not, in fact, murderers. In this installment, McManus offers the established characters of Maeve, Nate, Phoebe, Bronwyn, and Knox from book one--along with other old favorites and fresh faces--in a new set of intertwined, mysterious circumstances. But when someone unexpected comes to town, our sleuths realize that not everyone is who they say they are; that old mysteries are coming to light; and that yet again they might be the only ones who can serve up the justice that others so desperately deserve. The first two books in the One Of Us Is Lying series are One of Us Is Lying and One of Us Is Next. McManus also wrote Two Can Keep a Secret, The Cousins, and You’ll Be the Death of Me. 03 Only Pretty Damned by Niall Howell I'm listening to Niall Howell's debut, Only Pretty Damned, which is noir historical fiction set behind the scenes at Rowland's World Class Circus. What is it about a book set at a circus? I love this setup. Toby is a former celebrated trapeze artist, but carelessness cost him his headlining spot, and now he's a grumpy clown who's becoming more and more bitter, petty, scheming, greedy, and vengeful. Toby is chillingly without remorse and is building into a seeming sociopath. The storytelling is stark and feels like a black-and-white movie. I received an audiobook edition of this book courtesy of Libro.fm and NeWest Press.

My very favorite Bossy August reads! I had a great reading month! Here are the six books I most loved reading in the heat of August. There's a little bit of romantic, funny, steamy light fiction; the next wonderful installments in two historical fiction mystery series featuring irresistible heroines; a girl-power science-fiction space exploration; and a gorgeous Peter Heller story about the push and pull of conservation and tourism, set in Yellowstone National Park. I gave each of these reads 4.5 or 5 Bossy stars because of my reading love. If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear what you think! And I'd also love to hear: what are some of your recent favorite reads? 01 Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter This was my favorite read of the month! 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. This book made it onto the recent Greedy Reading List Six More Great Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories. 02 The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei I loved the futuristic space-mission capabilities, smart and strong all-woman crew, the mystery and suspicion, and most of all the character-driven storyline in Kitasei's science fiction novel. In Yume Kitasei's science fiction thriller The Deep Sky, a mission to deep space is disrupted by an explosion that shakes the confidence of the ship's crew. With the collapse of Earth's environment imminent, eighty trained elite young people venture into space, where they hope to preserve the human race for generations to come. But a deadly disaster on The Phoenix halfway to its destination causes suspicion to fall upon Asuka, the only living witness. Asuka must find the real culprit before accusations surrounding the mystery destroy her. I do generally love a book set on a ship barreling through space, and I loved The Deep Sky. Yume Kitasei offers plot and mystery, but this is primarily a wonderfully character-driven story--with a satisfying amount of spaceship detail, process, and futuristic capabilities (such as alternative realities the crew can pipe into their brains) to capture a reader's imagination. Asuka is very intelligent and capable, but she was chosen for the once-in-history journey as an alternate, and she constantly struggles with impostor syndrome. Everyone but Asuka feels like a suspect at some point or another, and I loved the way the author built tension without making me feel manipulated or offering red herrings. Click here for my full review of The Deep Sky. 03 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. 04 A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2) by Sherry Thomas Book two of Thomas's Lady Sherlock series offers a robust dual mystery, clever female characters, priceless gems of insight from Charlotte, a continued rejection of Victorian society's rigid expectations, and a bubbling undercurrent of forbidden attraction. I listened to the audiobook of the second in Thomas's Lady Sherlock series (read wonderfully by Kate Reading), in which Charlotte Holmes returns in all of her feisty, unconventional, clever glory, despite the significant constraints on women and their behavior in Victorian England. The mystery leads Charlotte to discover various illuminating aspects to Lord Ingram's past and his marriage, and her simmering (and shared) attraction to Ingram is a powerful undercurrent throughout, although practical Charlotte keeps all outrageous emotions and possibilities in check. Charlotte's various views on the world are absolute gems, and I love spending time in her point of view. A Study in Scarlet Women is the first book in Sherry Thomas's gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes mystery series, and I loved it. There are seven books in all. I can't wait to read the other books in this series! Please click here for my full review of A Conspiracy in Belgravia. 05 The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren The True Love Experiment is a wonderful, romantic read about forbidden attraction and heartwarming vulnerability, with steamy scenes, will-they/won't-they tensions, funny dialogue, behind-the-scenes televised moments, and loooooooove. I loved The Soulmate Equation from the writing team known as Christina Lauren. That book introduced the fantastic best-friend character of Felicity "Fizzy" Chen. The True Love Experiment is Fizzy's story. Fizzy is a straight talker, a sex-positive woman, and a successful romance writer, but she's never been in love, only in lust. Now she's beginning to feel like she's been selling her readers a lie. Connor Prince (his last name is Prince!) is a single dad and documentary filmmaker slated by his boss to create a reality TV program about finding love. He's completely out of his comfort zone and the pressure is on--but when he meets Fizzy, he just knows he's found the perfect star for the show. The True Love Experiment is an irresistible exploration of a spark of feelings, impossible difficulties, terrifying vulnerability, and hard-won joy. The issues keeping the two love interests apart felt powerful and heartbreaking and offered tantalizing tension to the story. The happy ending made me tear up and also made me want to cheer. This was a wonderful summer read for me and I loved it. For my full review, check out The True Love Experiment. 06 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. Deanna Raybourn is the author of A Curious Beginning and seven more Veronica Speedwell books (plus one scheduled for publication next year), as well as the wonderful stand-alone story Killers of a Certain Age. For my full review, please see A Perilous Undertaking.

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. I kept thinking what a delight Bird must have been, showing up after doggedly riding her trusty horse across the unforgiving Rockies--mountains whose stark beauty never failed to take her breath away--sauntering up to various cabins, campsites, and towns roughly dug into the rugged terrain, expecting adventure and goodwill and most often finding both. I listened to the audiobook version of A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, narrated by the wonderful Clare Wille, courtesy of Libro.fm and Naxos Audiobooks. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? If this book is down your alley, you might also be interested in the novels on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West and Six More Great Historical Fiction Books Set in the American West.

I was taken with the first half of this book--a rural cult, a teen mother, a strong female protagonist in an impossible situation, looking for answers. But I felt unmoored by the enormous shift into time travel and its inspiration within the story: a passionate obsession with Nathaniel Hawthorne. Self-pity from a man was something she could not abide, not when she had a woman's issues to deal with. The Invisible Hour begins with the story of Ivy, a feisty young woman who becomes pregnant, is threatened with the forcible adoption of her baby, and becomes a runaway. She flees to the embrace of the Community, a group of people living off the grid in rural western Massachusetts who preach love, share belongings, farm and harvest their own food, take collective care of children--and, Ivy soon finds out as her spirit is soon broken, endure severe punishment for asking questions or diverting from the wishes of the group's charismatic leader, Joel. (Joel as the bad guy in the story seems without redemption; he's petty, paranoid, vindictive, and determined to wreak havoc. There aren't gray areas for the reader to explore where he's concerned; revenge fantasies are the logical next step.) By the time she realizes her mistake in becoming entangled with the group, she feels it's too late to escape. It wasn't so hard not to show what you really felt if you practiced, if you closed your eyes and imagined that your daughter was with you even when she was somewhere else, if you let the wind rise all around you, if you only heard the songs of the sparrows in the forest, a place so dark it was easy to get lost even in broad daylight, even if your eyes were open. As Ivy's daughter Mia--who grows up in the oppressive Community, secretly and voraciously reading as a lifeline of sorts at the local library--becomes desperate to break with the group, she stumbles upon The Scarlet Letter--which is, as all books are, forbidden within the cult. The two-hundred-old story speaks to her so completely, it feels like it might just save her: "Sometimes when you read a book it's as if you were reading the story of your own life. That was what was happened to me. I woke up when I read the first page. I saw who I was and who I could be." I didn't have anything close to that reaction upon first readingThe Scarlet Letter, but Mia is her own person (character) in a complicated situation, desperate for connection, and okay, I was taking Mia's word for it at this point. But the story of The Invisible Hour makes a massive shift halfway through, when--spoiler--Mia travels back in time! And I love a time-travel story! Mia is compelled and able to travel through time because of the power of her determination to meet her heartthrob....Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne? "I'm in love with my favorite author," she says. Her crush is soon clarified as an all-systems-go teen-girl, can't-resist-him, can't-imagine-life-without-him swirl of emotions and passion. But I didn't really understand why. Mia reads secretly but endlessly and indiscriminately throughout her childhood. I didn't grasp why she would fixate so completely on this book and this man as her literal saviors. The Scarlet Letter explores humanity's sins and judgments and offers moral lessons--I could see her responding to those, particularly because of her own origin story and her mother's predicament of unwed pregnancy and parental judgment. And Hawthorne allows for a female character's passion and independence, although these were condemned by the society he writes about. "Real life is unbelievable. Souls are snatched away from us, flesh and blood turn to dust, people you love betray you, men go to war over nothing. It's all preposterous. That's why we have novels. To make sense out of things." But The Scarlet Letter? Really? And Nathaniel Hawthorne, an irresistible and unshakeable love interest because of the gorgeousness of his prose? I found myself wanting more justification so I could believe in all of it. And if there were such obsession and an instant, all-encompassing love, would Mia repeatedly risk upending her beloved Hawthorne's future as she does in The Invisible Hour, threatening even his eventual writing of The Scarlet Letter? "Now that she was before him, Mia wondered if it might be a mistake to tell him anything about his future," the book explains. (Mia has never heard of the butterfly effect, but honestly! Do not tell Nathaniel Hawthorne his future, Mia!) She realizes that altering his life path and writing is a very real danger, yet she continues to insert herself into his path and his life. I was intrigued by the first half of the book--cult life, the daring attempt to escape it, the haven found in books, and, ultimately, Mia's peaceful second chapter of life and shift in her family circumstances. I generally love time-travel novels, but I didn't feel engaged by the time-travel situation or feel invested in Mia's inspiration and reasoning for venturing into the past. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of Atria Books and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Alice Hoffman is also the author of The World That We Knew and over thirty other books. Another book with a character based upon Nathaniel Hawthorne--although the author treats him very differently as a character--is the historical fiction novel Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese.

Fascinating, sometimes infuriating firsthand peeks at admissions procedures and priorities; ways to evaluate buyer schools and seller schools; and Selingo's take on how to assess complex acceptance statistics and the importance of a specific school to a young person's success. The problem with these often-quoted statistics about selective schools is that they overlook the role that the student plays in their own eventual success.... I have a high school senior, so maybe it's time to finally read the stack of college admissions-related books I've been allowing to collect dust instead of simply continuing to take comfort in their proximity and the wisdom they may contain? In Who Gets In and Why, Jeffrey Selingo takes readers behind the scenes of three college admissions offices where he was given access during the course of a year: Emory University, Davidson College, and The University of Washington. He was given College...is an emotional decision, one economists refer to as an "experience good." We don't know what we're buying until after we experience it. Selingo also tracks the paths of a few students as they apply to college--on one end of the spectrum, a girl applying to selective universities and able to pay full tuition, and at the another end, a boy who is unaware of his secondary education and funding options and aims to be a first-generation college attendee. I love a look behind the curtain of a secret situation, and these peeks into colleges' admissions procedure, priorities, debates, dilemmas, and decision-making are absolutely fascinating. College admissions is a big business. Colleges and universities spend an estimated $10 billion annually on recruiting students. To put together a balanced lists of buyers and sellers, families need to look at two numbers in particular. The first is a school's desirability as measured by its yield--the percentage of accepted students who end up enrolling.... The second number is the percentage of institutional aid spent on non-need-based aid. Selingo dives into revealing the truth behind some of the mysteries of admissions (for example, how colleges use early decision to fill gaps they anticipate having; what makes an application essay stand out) while also studying the business of college admissions--including the money colleges spend on recruitment, where they spend it, and why; and the methods some schools have used to boost rankings or raise their perceived selectivity. But early decision also speeds up decision-making when students aren't quite ready for it. We know from neuroscientists and psychologists that the teenage brain is still maturing throughout high school...every month in high school is mentally like a year to adults. ED has a whole set of other rules, some written but many not.... Many of the seats available in the early rounds are essentially off-limits to most students. "Early decision serves the needs of colleges and universities a hell of a lot more than it serves students," says Chris Gruber, Davidson College's admissions dean. Selingo aims to eliminate the unknown in order to offer some sanity to those geared up about the overwhelming pressure of it all. He also offers tips on how to evaluate whether a school might be a match for a young person looking toward the next steps of their educational journey. He points out how college costs have soared--and how many parents go into great debt for a brand-name (or other) school. And he emphasizes his own strong belief (and the supporting data) that what a young person does with their degree is far more important than the source of that degree. I found it oddly calming to read about the varied, specific criteria desired by these varied college admissions committees in a certain year, season, and moment. This firsthand data reinforced the conclusion that acceptances aren't, of course, reflections of a young person's achievements or worth, instead mirroring an institution's priorities, however specific or broad. "Parents made clear that they believed they had to suppress their own financial anxieties," Zaloom wrote [in Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost], "so that they could allow their children's potential to take precedence." Selingo's book clarifies that there is no secret, or set of secrets, to admission. There are reasons why an institution prioritizes certain aspects of its incoming class, and factors that may be beneficial to one's odds include being an athlete, (sometimes) being a legacy, and, often, having the funds to pay for the high cost of college. Yet it feels oddly freeing to recognize the fact that so many factors relevant to a college's admissions are well beyond the control of a prospective student. The bottom line: in your college search worry less about specific name brands and even majors and worry more about acquiring skills and experiences once you're on campus, such as finding an undergraduate research project or landing an internship. By clarifying Who Gets In and Why, Selingo reinforces the approach for students of doing their thing, doing their best, being curious about the world, and feeling confident that there are many routes to their successful future. Aiming for the most talked-about institutions (and fighting to be one included in the infamous single-digit acceptance rates of some of them) is not the only way forward--and often not the most efficient move in terms of admissions, cost, or career outcomes. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Jeffrey Selingo is also the author of College Unbound and There Is Life After College.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, Isabelle L. Bird's narrative nonfiction set in the late nineteenth century West; I'm reading Kate Morton's dual-timeline mystery, Homecoming; and I'm reading Ashley Poston's newest light fiction that plays with time, The Seven Year Slip. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains: Embracing Adventure, Nature, and Freedom by Isabella L. Bird Isabella Bird was a British explorer of the western United States in the late 1800s, and she journeyed the challenging terrain in shocking solo fashion. Bird was an understated trailblazer with irresistible determination and feistiness. I'm listening to the audiobook version of A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, narrated by Clare Wille, courtesy of Libro.fm and Naxos Audiobooks. You might also be interested in the novels on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West and Six More Great Historical Fiction Books Set in the American West. 02 Homecoming by Kate Morton In Kate Morton's newest novel, Homecoming, it's Christmas Eve in southern 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 home to Sydney to care for her 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. Morton's story explores secrets, loyalties, mysteries, and the complicated matter of coming home. Morton is also the author of The Clockmaker's Daughter, The Forgotten Garden, The Secret Keeper, The House at Riverton, The Lake House, and The Distant Hours. 03 The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston What do we want? Books that play with time! When do we want them? Er...now? 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. Her aunt always said the apartment was a "pinch in time," where timelines blurred together. Now Clementine must figure out if her heart is strong enough to cope with losing the unlikely love she's finally found. Ashley Poston is also the author of The Dead Romantics.

The Revenge Fantasies...and Revenge Enacted Whether it's about righting wrongs, saving face, renegade justice, or playing the long game, I love a book about enacting revenge. When I started making a list of books I've loved that focus on this theme, I came up with several Greedy Reading Lists' worth. It's just an irresistible setup for a great story. Here are six novels across genres that kept me hooked on their revenge-filled storylines. Have you read any of these? If so, I'd love to hear what you thought. Do you have any favorite books that involve revenge? 01 Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots If you're in for a character-driven, superhero-focused, smart, wicked, action-packed book, look no further. I loved this book and am eagerly awaiting another in this series from Walschots. Anna is a hench. She's an expendable part of a data entry pool and works boring temp jobs...for villains. It's not like she's in the line of fire or taking part in dastardly plots. She sits behind a computer, she needs the steady paycheck--and she's got a grudging respect for the purity of the revenge missions of the "bad guys" (and girls, and others, including their sidekicks) who help her pay rent. Then she's unexpectedly and accidentally involved in a violent clash of good and evil and is badly injured by a gallingly shiny superhero. She doubles down on her contempt for the good guys and her annoyance at the way others see them as infallible when they're far from blameless. Anna's singular, ruthless mission of revenge shapes her emotionally and physically and affects her interpersonal relationships. At times she doesn't recognize herself much anymore. But she can't stop trying to destroy the heroes' false perfection that is devastating so much of the world, and her struggle feels noble in many ways, even if her methods are not. For my full review of this book, check out Hench. 02 Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby Razorblade Tears is a brutally violent story shadowed with heartbreaking regret and a fast read, and after my love of Blacktop Wasteland, I'm in for any of Cosby's writing. In S.A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears, two men are coping with the tragic, violent, mysterious deaths of their married sons. Derek and Isiah were estranged from their ex-con fathers, each of whom now regret every moment they didn't make sure the young men knew that they were perfect and beloved. The story highlights unlikely loyalties forged during desperate times, terrible scenes of cruelty, and shocking, mortal danger posed to everyone even cursorily connected to the situation at hand. This is a fast read, and I'm in for any of Cosby's writing. I loved his gritty, character-driven mystery-thriller Blacktop Wasteland so much that it made my Six Favorite Summer Reads list when I read it. For my full review of this book, please see Razorblade Tears. 03 The Change by Kristen Miller The Change explores the power of menopausal women and the poignant strength of friendship; supplies satisfying revenge fantasies and camp; and winds it all through our middle-aged heroines' satisfying solving of a disturbing set of mysteries. In Kristen Miller's novel The Change, set in Mattauk, Long Island, three women cope with various challenges surrounding aging, change, and unexpected new beginnings. Nessa, Jo, and Harriet work together and use their newfound abilities to try to solve the mystery of a missing girl, along the way uncovering dark, disturbing patterns of abusive power and shining a light on the horrifically effective shields provided by money and privilege. The tone of The Change is largely campy, as middle-aged women heroines unite against the book's sometimes caricature-like, purely evil bad guys by using their new-found fantastical powers. The revenge-fantasy element is particularly satisfying. But what I loved most about The Change was the unapologetic embracing of the frequently fraught menopausal stage of life. Miller allows the frequently dreaded and bemoaned middle-aged shifts and changes to lead her female characters to realize their terrific strengths. Separately they're formidable, but together, they build a collective power that is the community's only hope to right terrible, horrible, longstanding wrongs. Click here for my full review of The Change. 04 Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel Stephanie Wrobel's Darling Rose Gold is a wonderfully twisted tale, with double-crossing, codependence, and dark turns. But some of us cannot forget and will never forgive. We keep our axes sharp, ready to grind. We hold pleas for mercy between our teeth like jawbreakers. They say a grudge is a heavy thing to carry. Good thing we’re extra strong. In Darling Rose Gold, Wrobel gives us Münchausen syndrome by proxy, lies, betrayals, and double-crossing, all within a claustrophobic, isolated, and codependent mother-and-daughter relationship. I was totally hooked on this fast read and couldn’t wait to find out who was the better strategist and who was tricking who. I thought Wrobel's tone was masterful; it wasn't clear who was manipulating the situation and who was being played, or if neither or both were in control. For my full review of this book, check out Darling Rose Gold. 05 The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey This sci-fi thriller is about betrayal and revenge, but it's not the other-woman story you might expect. I still think of this book from time to time, long after reading it. Evelyn Caldwell is a brilliant scientist who is also married to a scientist. She's winning awards and well-deserved international attention for her incredible genetic cloning advancements--but people have noticed that her husband has recently been mysteriously absent from her side as she collects her many honors. This sci-fi thriller is about the forces that drive apart a husband and wife, and the story is about betrayal and revenge, but I hadn't read the premise before I started reading, and I almost dropped the book when I realized what was going on, I was so shocked by the setup--it's not your usual cheating-husband situation. There are loops and layers to Gailey's story that have to do with identity, autonomy, freedom, shaping others to suit your expectations and desires--and recognizing how you're shaped by others in turn. I loved the characters' unanticipated loyalty to unlikely parties and their hard-won emotional growth. I was hooked on this one and couldn't wait to find out what happened. I'd love to watch this in movie form. (I just checked, and the rights have been sold. I hope this project happens sooner than later!) For my full review of this book, see The Echo Wife. 06 The Harpy by Megan Hunter This slim, intriguing book packs a punch, featuring revenge fantasies mixed with magical realism. Lucy and Jake are the parents of two young boys. Lucy has sidelined her career to be home with the children, and she and Jake are settled into their routine of daily chores, a comfortable rhythm of longtime marriage, and few surprises. Lucy feels disruptively restless at times, but really, she figures, who doesn't? Then Lucy receives a message that Jake, her reliable, predictable scientist of a husband, is having an affair with a colleague. A woman he'd invited to their home. Vanessa. Lucy is undone, but she's resigned to finding a way to move forward. Jake and Lucy reach a tentative truce--with an enormous hitch. Lucy demands to be allowed to hurt Jake three times, physically or otherwise, and each time the act will take him by surprise. Then they'll be even, and all will be forgiven. Hunter intersperses details of a long-term fascination on Lucy's part with mythology, and she also offers a layer of magical realism that is most present at the end. Hunter's novel felt unexpected to me, especially in its tone, as the story metamorphoses through everyday predictability, heartbreak and anger, coldly enacted harm, and magical elements. I'm also entranced and a little pleasantly horrified by that cover, including the blood drop hanging precariously from the Y. For my full review of this book, please check out The Harpy.

Katlia's story is based on actual events, detailing the displacement of Indigenous people and the devastating consequences of greed, the abuse of power, and a disregard for other cultures. Katlia's novel This House Is Not a Home is a novel of Indigenous people displaced by greedy settlers. The story takes place in northern Canada, but the tragedy is uncomfortably and universally familiar and is based on real-life events: Indigenous children kidnapped and sent to residential schools, homes snatched, traditions erased, and a culture dismissed. Ko is an Indigenous man who is taken advantage of time after time. He and others in his culture are made to feel less-than because the rules of the game have changed--hunting, subsisting off the land, and honoring long-held traditions are no longer respected (nor are they, in any practical sense, allowed). The land is controlled by those who would keep moving the goalposts, obfuscating the terms of living, and cheating the Indigenous out of their familial lands. Ko and his family suffer. Their health, safety, and security are all deeply jeopardized by the circumstances of their current lives: their faulty homes, built by strangers without Indigenous people's request on the land that used to support them--homes they never desired but have been forced to take on; the mounting expenses of upkeep and maintenance costs; and the crooked manner in which they are led to sell the junk houses to free up cash for the new-to-them economy based upon it. In Ko's case, it seems he is left with nothing. The difficult topics raised are important to explore and discuss. Katlia also explores complicated issues such as addiction, respecting elders, and family loyalty. Yet the bad guys are purely evil here, and there are few subtleties, gray areas, or character complexities presented in the story for the reader to explore. Narrator Brianne Tucker has a cheerful tone to her voice, which at times felt out of keeping with the grim story of the horrendous abuses of power and consistent disregard for Indigenous people which lead to disastrous consequences for real-life versions of Ko and other Indigenous people. I received an audiobook edition of this book courtesy of Libro.fm and Fernwood Publishing. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Katlia is a Cree and Metis writer. A book that kept coming to mind as I read this one is This Tender Land, historical fiction by William Kent Krueger. It details the goings-on at an Indian Training School and the "restructuring" that cut off many American Indians from their culture, their families, and their history and traditions.

I loved the futuristic space-mission capabilities, smart and strong all-woman crew, the mystery and suspicion, and most of all the character-driven storyline in Kitasei's science fiction novel. The thing about saying yes to the first (and probably only) one-way interstellar voyage to settle a new world was that there were no take backs. In Yume Kitasei's science fiction thriller The Deep Sky, a mission to deep space is disrupted by an explosion that shakes the confidence of the ship's crew. With the collapse of Earth's environment imminent, eighty trained elite young people venture into space, where they hope to preserve the human race for generations to come. But a deadly disaster on The Phoenix halfway to its destination causes suspicion to fall upon Asuka, the only living witness. Asuka must find the real culprit before accusations surrounding the mystery destroy her. "It's not giving up on the world. It's making more of it. Isn't that the point? If I thought the problems here were unfixable, I couldn't support the mission. Because if that were true, we wouldn't deserve another chance. And we do." I do generally love a book set on a ship barreling through space, and I loved The Deep Sky. Yume Kitasei offers plot and mystery, but this is primarily a wonderfully character-driven story--with a satisfying amount of spaceship detail, process, and futuristic capabilities (such as alternative realities the crew can pipe into their brains) to capture a reader's imagination. Asuka is intelligent and capable, but she was chosen for the once-in-history journey as an alternate, and she constantly struggles with impostor syndrome. She fills in where she's needed rather than being valued for a special ability, and she sometimes feels like a glorified handywoman. Asuka's relationship with her mother was strained before her departure, and her family had suffered earlier tragedies that shaped and complicated its structure and their communication. Now her mother's involvement in an environmental renegade group on Earth leads some of Asuka's crewmates to cast aspersions on her when the destructive on-ship explosion threatens the safety of the crew--and the mission itself. The book explores environmental responsibility and culpability as Kitasei explains the reason for the ship's departure to populate another world. Communication with Earth is complicated by the increasing distance between the planet and the ship, and when things begin to go wrong, with more and more seeming sabotaged elements endangering the crew and mission, Kitasei brings the reader into the crew's sense of panic that they're the only ones making key decisions and that they're operating in a vacuum. Everyone but Asuka is potentially a suspect at some point or another, and I loved the way the author built tension without making me feel manipulated or offering red herrings. Unrelated to the content of the book but relevant for Bossy purposes, I feel robbed that I read this on an e-reader because this cover, oh my word. It's gorgeous! I received a prepublication edition of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Flatiron Books. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I recently posted a Greedy Reading List of Six Fascinating Stories Set in Space. If this book interests you, you might want to check out the titles on that list. You might also like Six Great Stories about Robots, Humans, and Alien Life and AI, Six More Fantastic Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels, and Six Four-Star (and Up) Science Fiction Reads I Loved Last Year.

Heller's newest 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. Peter Heller's newest novel, 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. Peter Heller is an absolute favorite author of mine. His writing is beautiful, and its spare tone strikes the perfect chord for the wild environment his characters live within. Ren is emotionally closed off due to past personal tragedy, yet he is endearingly connected to his fellow park employees and to many of those who live in the towns bordering the park. When he does show vulnerability, it feels hard-won--I loved it. The impossible, frustrating push and pull of tourism and preservation are a tension throughout the story. I loved seeing Ren's procedure as he prevented issues, coped with challenges, headed off trouble, and faced danger head-on. The reintroduced wolves are at the center of the story--the public's fascination, shared by scientists studying the animals; the inability to contain the creatures within park boundaries to preserve their safety; and the danger that comes for them even within the park. A subplot confused me in that it felt as though its presence was meant to build up widespread danger and reveal shiver-inducing deep roots winding throughout political powerhouses and wealthy supporters. Then it was dropped altogether, so that it felt like a messy situation that isn't fully explored. A couple of other potentially disastrous and complex situations were faced and addressed, and I enjoyed the clean resolutions that may have been easy but felt satisfying. 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. I received a prepublication copy of this book courtesy of Knopf and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Heller is also the author of The Guide, The River, and The Painter, as well as The Dog Stars.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Congratulations, The Best Is Over, essays by R. Eric Thomas; I'm listening to Katlia's story based on fact about Indigenous people and the greed that displaced and discounted them; and I'm reading Alice Hoffman's newest novel about a cult and a desperate woman saved by a book, The Invisible Hour. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Congratulations, The Best Is Over by R. Eric Thomas Thomas was living his best life following the success of his writings about the chaotic political climate and his reactions to it. Then he moved home to Baltimore, where he had pledged never to live again--and had mixed feelings about even visiting again. He finds himself in the odd position of living in his own past while trying to shift into his future life. R. Eric Thomas is also the author of Here For It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine Books. 02 This House Is Not a Home by Katlia Katlia's novel This House Is Not a Home is a novel of Indigenous people displaced by greedy settlers. The story takes place in northern Canada, but the tragedy is uncomfortably familiar and based on real-life events: Indigenous children kidnaped and sent to residential schools, homes snatched, traditions erased, and a culture dismissed. I received an audiobook edition of this book courtesy of Libro.fm and Fernwood Publishing. This House Is Not a Home is narrated by Brianne Tucker. Katlia is a Cree and Metis writer. A book that keeps coming to mind as I read this one is This Tender Land, historical fiction by William Kent Krueger. It details the goings-on at an Indian Training School and the "restructuring" that cut off American Indians from their culture, their families, and their history and traditions. 03 The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman The Invisible Hour tells the story of Mia Jacob, accidentally pregnant, threatened with the forcible adoption of her baby, then a runaway. Mia flees to the embrace of the Community, a group of people living off the grid in rural western Massachusetts who preach love, share belongings, farm and harvest their own food, take collective care of children--and endure severe punishment for asking questions or departing from the group's leader. When Mia, who has become desperate, stumbles upon The Scarlet Letter--which is, as all books are, forbidden within the cult--the two-hundred-old story speaks to her so completely, it feels like it might just save her. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of Atria Books and NetGalley. Alice Hoffman is also the author of The World That We Knew and over thirty books. Another book with a character based upon Nathaniel Hawthorne--although it treats him very differently as a character--is the historical fiction novel Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese.

Space Stories I've Loved I'm captivated by stories about space--the unknown, the possibilities, the unimaginable challenges, the often-unforgiving conditions, the authors' worldbuilding--and the books listed here are a few of my absolute favorites. Because I love the series so very much, I have separate posts for Martha Wells's Murderbot series, set in deep space. Here are my glowing reviews of the first three installments and here is my gushing take on the fourth; you can click here to read about my love for the fifth. If you're interested in books like this, you might also like the books on these Greedy Reading Lists: Six Great Stories about Robots, Humans, and Alien Life and AI Six More Fantastic Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels Six Four-Star (and Up) Science Fiction Reads I Loved Last Year Have you read any of these books? I'd love to hear what you thought! Have you loved any space-set stories that should go on my next Greedy Reading List of stories set in space? 01 August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White White's first Starmetal Symphony installment offers deadly deep-space robots, showcases the power of music, and illustrates how love can persist even in the face of imminent demise. I loved the main characters' fashion, banter, and stubbornness. Gus is a jazz pianist whose biggest hope for the pending end of the world was to play at the most epic goodbye party of all time. After all, the Vanguards, giant, deadly AI robots, are headed from deep space to destroy Earth at any moment. But when the Vanguards arrive, the sudden, brutal ending Gus has envisioned for himself doesn't happen. Instead, Gus and a few other Earthlings are pulled in by a small group of traitorous Vanguards--and tasked with being modified, temporarily melded with the robots, battling other robots--and saving all of humanity. The robots and the imminent demise of the human race that the robots seem perched to enact serve as a catalyst for the human main characters to assess their own purposes and consider what makes life worth living. They forge desperate, deep connections and struggle with loss and an uncertain future, and I loved the impractical, invigorating, stubborn love in the book. I also really enjoyed White's Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe, the first in the Salvagers series. Click here for my full review of August Kitko and the Mechas from Space. 02 Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter Lostetter's standalone science fiction is a story about robots, a ragtag space crew, friends like family, and reimagining one's place in the universe. Activation Degradation begins with Unit Four's initial activation. It has just become sentient, and like its robot sisters, it has been programmed to fight the aliens currently attacking its ship. But whether it's a glitch or instincts that shouldn't be possible, Unit Four realizes that the situation as its handler has explained it doesn't quite add up. When Unit Four is taken onto the enemy alien ship as a prisoner and is unable to communicate with its handler, it begins to understand that all is not black and white, and that it may need to rethink all it has been taught to believe. Lostetter's book started off with a lot of logistics that slowed things for me, but as of page 66 the action and character development and exploration of morality and friendship and life purpose began clicking along. Activation Degradation explores what makes a person worth saving--or simply existing--as well as unconventional love and relationships, personal responsibility, sacrifice and bravery, and staying open to revolutionarily new ideas and ways of looking at the world--and the universe. Click here for my full review of Activation Degradation. 03 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir In Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir offers the fascinating story of a desperate space mission, creative innovation, and enduring optimism, with an enormous amount of heart that surprised me. Ryland Grace wakes up as the sole survivor of a last-chance effort to save Earth and its inhabitants. But he doesn't know that yet. He seems to be in space and isn't sure what has happened, and not only does he not remember his own name or where he's from, he also doesn't remember his scientific expertise or anything else that could help him survive and succeed in his quest. The memories are beginning to slowly shift back into focus, but he needs them now. He's millions of miles from Earth, and he's got two dead crewmates, a chatty AI robot caregiver, a lot of complicated equipment, and a mysterious mission whose purpose and execution he'll have to unravel if he's to possibly survive--much less save humanity. In Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir has created another irresistible story of hope, resilience, wonder, and discovery. Andy Weir is also the author of The Martian and Artemis. One of my few reading regrets is not having listened to this as an audiobook. For my full review, please check out Project Hail Mary. 04 The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers Chambers's science fiction is full of heart, heartbreak, and hope--with a fascinating backdrop of space travel and interspecies relations. In The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, the first science fiction title in Becky Chambers's Wayfarers series, young Rosemary feels lucky to have landed the job of clerk for the quirky, ragtag, but welcoming crew of the Wayfarer ship. The group is made up of various creatures from around the galaxy, and they've already built bonds through working together for ages. Yet they make room in the mix for Rosemary, who's grateful--and who's frankly glad to leave her significant personal troubles behind. Chambers's story is science fiction that's full of heart, heartbreak, and hope. The book feels much more focused on the characters--with a backdrop of space travel and otherworldly creatures--than on exploration or adventure. Much of the story is about acceptance and openness and finding ways to get along. Interspecies relations are prickly, comfortable, romantic, puzzling, or all of the above. I love that the crew of the Wayfarer feels like a close-knit group of summer camp counselors somehow, palling around, sometimes irritating each other, each with special gifts and the ability and desire to help crewmates reach their full potentials, emotionally or otherwise. I just adored this. For my full review, check out The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. 05 The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow is about everything. Family, pain, love, music, influence, trust, wonder, brutality, invention, discovery, loyalty, and most of all, faith—in some cases, lost and found again. And also...aliens. In The Sparrow, humans find proof of extraterrestrial life, and the UN begins deliberating about those on Earth should proceed. Meanwhile, a small team from the Society of Jesus quickly strikes out on its own to approach the planet first. The life they find there is wondrous and overwhelming, and it forces them to rethink their assumptions about humanity and the universe. I don’t usually read books again these days (I'm too greedy), but I could use a copy of this book to highlight upon rereading. The Sparrow took a little time to get going for me, but then I was blown away. For my full review of this book, please see The Sparrow. 06 The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James Romy's soaring hopes, her vulnerability and then her growing doubts, her self-reliance and quick thinking, and the shifts and twists of the book all kept me hooked for this quick read. I loved this. ​Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met, never even spoken to--someone who is light years away? This young adult science fiction story has an irresistible premise: teenaged Romy is the sole survivor on her spaceship, which is en route to establishing an outpost on a new planet. She's on her own out there in space, and as lonely as any human could imagine being. There's no hope of seeing another human again anytime soon. Her sole communication outlet is with her NASA contact, Molly, who sends her audio messages (and occasionally forwards along episodes of Romy's favorite TV show). But then Romy gets word that another ship has launched from earth, with a young man called J as the pilot. Romy is on her own in space, haunted by the events that led to her solo venture. Her self-reliance, romanticized ideas, quick thinking, and strength of character, along with the shifts and twists of the book, all kept me hooked. For my full review, please see The Loneliest Girl in the Universe.

Book two of Thomas's Lady Sherlock series offers a robust dual mystery, clever female characters, priceless gems of insight from Charlotte, a continued rejection of Victorian society's rigid expectations, and a bubbling undercurrent of forbidden attraction. “To be thought of as the perfect woman for a man isn’t a compliment to a woman, it’s more about how a man sees himself—and what he needs.” A Study in Scarlet Women was the first book in Sherry Thomas's gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes mystery series. It offered not only an irresistible heroine, but a fascinating examination of gender in Victorian society--and what happens when women blow up expectations. I listened to the audiobook of the second in Thomas's Lady Sherlock series (read wonderfully by Kate Reading), in which Charlotte Holmes returns in all of her feisty, unconventional, clever glory, despite the significant constraints on women and their behavior in Victorian England. And then Sherlock Holmes had turned out to be a woman with loose morals and no remorse. Charlotte is faced with an unexpected client: Lady Ingram, the wife of Charlotte's dear friend and benefactor Lord Ingram. Lady Ingram is seeking confidential answers to the mystery of the disappearance of someone revealed as her one true love--who also happens to be Charlotte's illegitimate half brother. Charlotte is torn between her duty to assist her client and her duty to reveal the hurtful truth to her friend as she dives into solving this complicated mystery--with the help of her resourceful partners Mrs. Watson and her independent-minded niece Penelope. The mystery leads Charlotte to discover various illuminating aspects to Lord Ingram's past and his marriage, and her simmering (and shared) attraction to Ingram is a powerful undercurrent throughout, although practical Charlotte keeps all outrageous emotions and possibilities in check. I was thrilled that this book didn't involve a male proxy by which Charlotte explored avenues of discovery--this was a small all-woman cast of strong, defiant, clever women assessing and intuiting their way to the truth. Of course. Now she saw the error of her ways. She had been so consumed by the Vigenère cipher that she—horrors—hadn’t been eating properly. A quick glance at the mirror told her that she was down to only one point three chins. No wonder her brain was so slow and unwieldy, like a steam engine on the last shovel of coal. Two more madeleines and she felt like a new woman. Charlotte's various views on the world are absolute gems, and I absolutely love spending time in her point of view. I can't wait to read all of the other books in this series! Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? A Study in Scarlet Women is the first book in Sherry Thomas's gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes mystery series, and I loved it. There are seven books in all. This series invites comparisons to another fantastic Victorian-era-set mystery series featuring a strong, smart heroine who bucks convention, Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series (A Curious Beginning, A Perilous Undertaking, A Treacherous Curse, and six more). The mysteries in Thomas's Lady Sherlock series seem more robust and complex than those in Raybourn's series thus far, with Raybourn's character development taking more center stage in that series, but I adore both of these series.

The first in this dragon rider series by Yarros is full of dramaaaaatic teen angst, a cutthroat path to becoming a warrior, bucking expectations, a looming war--and, my favorite element of the story, dragons! Fourth Wing is the first in Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean fantasy series, about a war college for dragon riders. Twenty-year-old Violet was hoping to live out a studious, satisfyingly quiet future in the Scribe Quadrant. That is, until the cutthroat commanding general--who also happens to be Violet's mother--pushes her to vie with the rest of Navarre's young people to secure spots in the select Riders Quadrant, as dragon riders. Violet is smaller than average, without the drive to fight. But the war is raging, leadership is clearly keeping secrets, and working with the ruthless, deadly dragons is starting to feel like her best bet. Aside from the dragons, my favorite element of the story is Violet's determined coping with and accommodations for her chronic illness and significant disability. She shows kickass stubbornness in the face of adversity--even if, within the book's various dangerous scenarios, it repeatedly seemed that Violet might well do herself in by ignoring and pushing through her physical issues while facing the impossible situations she is forced to endure. I'm a fan of varying language and also of creative cursing, so at the risk of being a Grumpy Old Lady for mentioning this, I have to say that the word "fuck" appeared so frequently in the text as to feel irritating and distracting to me, so I counted: 257 instances in my electronic edition. The overuse of smirking and " a corner of [his/her] mouth lifts" for amusement, the "cupping" of cheeks for affection; I was drawn out of the moment by multiple instances of odd tone shifts and what felt like repeated nonsensical or strange timing for characters' reactions (after a reminder that a classmate is dead, a character "quips," for example; the silly and youthful exclamation "I miss sex" seems to come out of nowhere; sexual innuendos seem to come at strange, inopportune times; a main character's repeated indignation at her safety's being doubted when she is clearly out of her element and in danger seems warranted, yet she persists in being outrageously offended over and over). Some of the "bad guy" characters feel too easy to hate--they're so purely evil, so outrageously deserving of justice, that their comeuppance is assured from their first appearance on the page. Other characters aren't what they first seem, and while the initial enemies-to-maybe-lovers setup of the book is easily predicted, the attraction is fun to see as it grows, with complicated motivations and the weight of a nation's safety clouding the teens' love lives. It makes sense that Yarros is the author of a romance series, Flight & Glory, as well as other romance titles. There are many dramaaaaaatic teen angst moments here ("As if knowing him would somehow make me want him less, but everything I learn about him only makes me tumble harder and faster"; "Is it absolutely toxic that I'm attracted to this look on him? Probably. But one look, and my temperature rises") and intense fixations on elements such as a character's "incredible scent" that stopped me at times. And yet, this is a book about dragons, and I am typically all in on a book about dragons (see the link below to other dragon books I've read and reviewed). So while I wished for a heavier editorial hand in the copyediting stage of this one, Fourth Wing was a fun read, and I loved the twist at the end of book one. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? You might also like these other books I've read and reviewed about dragons.

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. He thinks of all this- this is the price he has paid for loving so much, and it doesn't feel better, but it makes sense. It seems reasonable. Chuck Ayers is a recent widower and is reeling from the loss of the love of his life. As he faces a scheduled yearly vacation to Hilton Head, he attempts to get rid of his wife's belongings--and discovers aspects to her that he never knew when she was alive. Kirsten Bonato has suffered a loss of her own, which threw off her long-standing plans for vet school. Now she's working at an animal rescue center and sorting out burgeoning romantic feelings for two different men. She thinks of Mrs. A., her beautiful goodness. How, in so many ways, she made her students see a vision of a kind world. How knowing this world existed has stayed inside Kirsten and countered the cruelty of what happened to her father. Ella Burke is struggling to make ends meet and to fill her long days. Her young daughter is missing, and Ella is in limbo, desperately hoping she hears news soon. 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. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Ethan Joella is also the author of A Little Hope, a book I look forward to reading.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions by Jeffrey Selingo; I'm reading Peter Heller's newest suspenseful novel, set in Yellowstone National Park, The Ranger; and I'm listening to the second in an irresistible historical fiction series from Sherry Thomas, A Conspiracy in Belgravia. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions by Jeffrey Selingo I have a rising high school senior, so maybe it's time to read the stack of college admissions-related books I've been using to collect dust? In Who Gets In and Why, Jeffrey Selingo takes readers behind the scenes of three college admissions offices during the course of a year: a selective private university, a large public flagship university, and a liberal arts college. He lays bare some of the mysteries of college admissions--aiming to offer some sanity to those of us geared up about the pressure and the unknown of it all, as well as offering tips as to how to evaluate whether a school might be a match for a young person looking toward the next steps of their educational journey. 02 The Last Ranger by Peter Heller Peter Heller's newest novel, The Last Ranger, centers around Ren, an enforcement officer in Yellowstone National Park. He 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. Heller is also the author of The Guide, The River, and The Painter. 03 A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2) by Sherry Thomas A Study in Scarlet Women was the first book in Sherry Thomas's gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes mystery series. It offered not only an irresistible heroine, but a fascinating examination of gender in Victorian society--and what happens when women blow up expectations. I'm listening to the audiobook of the second in Thomas's Lady Sherlock series, in which Charlotte Holmes returns in all of her feisty, unconventional, clever glory, despite the significant constraints on women and their behavior in Victorian England. Charlotte is faced with an unexpected client: Lady Ingram, the wife of Charlotte's dear friend and benefactor Lord Ingram. Lady Ingram is seeking confidential answers to the mystery of the disappearance of someone revealed as her one true love--who also happens to be Charlotte's illegitimate half brother. Charlotte is torn between her duty to assist her client and her duty to reveal the hurtful truth to her friend as she dives into solving this complicated mystery--with the help of her wonderful partners Mrs. Watson and her independent-minded niece.

More Funny and Sweet Light Fiction Adorable rom-coms feel like the perfect summertime reading, and I've loved so many lately, I can't wait to share these with you! If you're into lighter fiction with some romance and laughs, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories. Have you read any of these? I'd love to hear what you thought! Have you loved any other romantic comedy or lighter fiction stories lately? 01 Will They or Won't They by Ava Wilder Ava Wilder's rom-com takes us behind the scenes of a hit teen TV show whose lead characters once liked each other in real life but now can't stand each other. This was funny, sweet, steamy, and poignant--a fantastic summer light-fiction read that I loved. Lilah Hunter and Shane McCarthy are the stars of the popular paranormal television show Intangible, and for multiple seasons they've yearned for each other on screen, but their characters have never gotten together. Lilah has dreams of directing and of breaking into movies, but she's back for the sixth and final season of the show, in which her character and Shane's will finally get together. But in real life, Shane and Lilah detest each other. Their secret tryst at the end of season one ended badly, and they've been far from friendly ever since. I LOVED this. The premise sounded like a slam dunk for me, and the reality of the book was a funny, poignant, banter-filled, behind-the-scenes, realistically complicated, wonderful story. There's a ton of steaminess as Lilah and Shane at times can't deny their attraction and act upon it. I smiled a lot, I teared up, and I loved this perfect summer read! For my full review of this book, check out Will They or Won't They. 02 Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood Ali Hazelwood's light fiction novel is wonderfully immersed in science, offering a forbidden relationship and an enemies-to-lovers dynamic, plus lots of steamy scenes. Elsie Hannaway is an adjunct physics professor, but her dream is to dedicate herself to a career in research. To help pay the bills, Elsie is a paid escort (who does not have sex with her clients, as she keeps explaining to certain men). She's fake-dating a nice man in order to keep his family off of his back. Now Elsie has the interview of a lifetime, at MIT. But a series of coincidences and misunderstandings lead to her being unaware that the head physicist on site...is her fake boyfriend's brother. I loved the significant science element here, the jargon, the exploration of academic politics, and the passion for research and discovery. I was frustrated by Elsie's lack of assertiveness, although I recognized that it was set up in order to have her ultimately find her own opinions and set her course. I found the family dynamic related to her mother's demands of Elsie absurd. The situation with her twin brothers felt slapstick and silly to me. The steamy scenes, the twisty route to the relationship, the career shifts, and the science focus were all winners for me. I'd like to read more by Ali Hazelwood. For my full review of this book, check out Love, Theoretically. 03 The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren The True Love Experiment is a wonderful, romantic read about forbidden attraction and heartwarming vulnerability, with steamy scenes, will-they/won't-they tensions, funny dialogue, behind-the-scenes televised moments, and loooooooove. I loved The Soulmate Equation from the writing team known as Christina Lauren. That book introduced the fantastic best-friend character of Felicity "Fizzy" Chen. The True Love Experiment is Fizzy's story. Fizzy is a straight talker, a sex-positive woman, and a successful romance writer, but she's never been in love, only in lust. Now she's beginning to feel like she's been selling her readers a lie. Connor Prince (his last name is Prince!) is a single dad and documentary filmmaker slated by his boss to create a reality TV program about finding love. He's completely out of his comfort zone and the pressure is on--but when he meets Fizzy, he just knows he's found the perfect star for the show. The True Love Experiment is an irresistible exploration of a spark of feelings, impossible difficulties, terrifying vulnerability, and hard-won joy. The issues keeping the two love interests apart felt powerful and heartbreaking and offered tantalizing tension to the story. The happy ending made me tear up and also made me want to cheer. This was a wonderful summer read for me and I loved it. For my full review, check out The True Love Experiment. 04 Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon In Weather Girl, Rachel Lynn Solomon brings humor and a little steamy romance to a newsroom setting, with a fun Parent Trap-style backdrop--and weighty issues like depression that are addressed with grace. Ari Abrams has always been fascinated by the weather, and now she's got her dream job: she's a junior meteorologist on TV. But her two bosses, Torrence and Seth, who are exes, seem more concerned with their long-term petty arguments and with airing personal grievances than with running the station, mentoring younger staff members, or creating professional opportunities. When Ari and kind, quiet sportscaster Russell close down the company's holiday party, they joke about Parent Trapping Seth and Torrence in order to create harmony in the TV station and allow them to better do their jobs. As they mastermind a plan to bring the exes together in Rachel Lynn Solomon’s light fiction story, Russell and Ari realize they have more in common than they thought. Weather Girl is romantic and occasionally steamy. The story is largely about accepting yourself and loving yourself--and treasuring someone who delights in you just the way you are. This is an excellent example of how authors of light fiction can take on weighty issues with grace and care. For my full review of this book, check out Weather Girl. 05 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. 06 Charm City Rocks 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. I was in love with Charm City Rocks--the Baltimore love, the embracing of the beauty in an everyday life and in straightforward affection, the heartbreak of missed chances, and the soaring hearts who find renewed belief in true love. For my full review of this book, please check out Charm City Rocks.

David Joy's mystery, Those We Thought We Knew, set in the North Carolina mountains, explores issues of racism, corruption, generational privilege, betrayal, forgiveness, and the power of art. "I don't know what to say," Coggins said, and that was the truth. He'd come with empty hands and now they were full, and he didn't know what to do with what he was holding. What she'd handed him was heavy and he had no place to sit it down. Toya Gardner has returned from Atlanta to her rural North Carolina town to track her family's history and finish her thesis for graduate school. But the young Black artist encounters a local Confederate statue that is still standing, and its existence shifts her focus and energy. Meanwhile, a man from outside the community believed to be living in his station wagon turns out to be a Klan member--and he has a notebook full of the names of local residents. When two terrible crimes shake the small community, they also bring to light generations of dark history and dangerous secrets. I felt torn about this book. The issues it raises are powerful: generational racism and privilege, the power of art, and abhorrent tendencies that may be overlooked or willfully ignored within a community, to tragic ends. Yet I thought some of the characters' shock at seeing racism, hatred, ignorance, and fear laid bare felt naive, while some of these same characters' moments of awakening to their own racism and their realizations of their own privilege felt too easy. The evil at the center of the mystery was a surprise because of the varied points of view, so while I felt a little bit manipulated, I was also glad to not have been certain of the disturbing truth behind the deadly mystery. "I guess there comes a moment you start realizing that keeping your mouth shut's the same thing as nodding your head." I found myself wanting more character development--particularly regarding the younger members of the police force, who are immensely appealing and interestingly faulted. But the book was driven by plot, multiple mysteries, the North Carolina mountain setting, and the story's social commentary on race, racism, power, and art. I received a prepublication edition of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? David Joy is also the author of the wonderful When These Mountains Burn as well as Where All Light Tends to Go, The Weight of This World, and a memoir, Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman's Journey. You can click here to find fiction and nonfiction books I've read and reviewed that explore issues of race and racism and politics or social justice as well as titles set in the South.