The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading a story about brothers sleeping rough and struggling to get by at the turn of the century alongside larger-than-life characters ranging from activists to performers and murderers to idealists; a memoir about a young woman's yearning to cross the border from Mexico to the U.S. to reunite with her parent--and her disillusionment upon her arrival; and an upcoming mystery about a missing persons detective whose retreat to her hometown leads her into the middle of a missing person case there: the disappearance of a local young woman. Which books are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms? 01 The Cold Millions by Jess Walter Rye and Gig Dolan are brothers in Spokane, Washington, trying to eke out a living at the turn of the century, sleeping rough with other tramps, eluding the cops who come around to crack heads, and trying to work within crooked labor systems. There's a wide chasm between the rich and the struggling poor, and it seems to be growing. Gig is an idealist eager for labor reform, while Rye is simply desperate for work that pays. Walter has created a full cast of characters ranging from madams to activists, feminists to magnates, well-read wanderers to brutal murderers, and every shade of crooked dealer, morally questionable citizen, and shiny-eyed optimist in between. Walter is also the author of Beautiful Ruins. 02 The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande The Distance Between Us is Grande's memoir about her childhood in 1980s Mexico, living in poverty with her siblings and a cold grandmother, and yearning to join her parents, who worked in the United States and sent money back to Reyna and her brother. After eight long years, Reyna convinced her reluctant father to bring the children to Los Angeles, but the United States wasn't what she had imagined. Her father had a new girlfriend who wasn't interested in the children, and her father drank heavily and sent the family into turmoil. Grande digs into her family's complicated history of trauma, disappointment, struggle, and, for some members, unshakable bonds. 03 When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain Anna is a missing persons detective. When she experiences a personal tragedy of her own, she flees to the Northern California of her childhood. But when she arrives, she finds out that a young local woman has gone missing. "Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives--and our faith in one another." McLain is also the author of Circling the Sun and The Paris Wife. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of Random House and NetGalley.

Cory Anderson's debut is a story about darkness, desperation, unlikely loyalty, and, ultimately, brave young characters in tough spots trying to cobble together something close to hope. In the young adult novel What Beauty There Is, Jack and his brother are painfully poor and living alone in rural Idaho. It's winter, it's cold, and it's tough to simply survive. But if Jack can't find the drug money his father stole before heading to prison, things will get worse: his younger brother will be sent into foster care. There's no real choice to make--Jack would never allow his brother to go. So now he just needs to do some dangerous digging into matters that seem to generally end up sending others to jail...or resulting in death. Meanwhile, nearby, Ava's been kept quiet and controlled by her father her whole life--and he's after the same money Jack so desperately needs. Ava must decide whether she'll stick by her cruel father or if she's willing to help the brothers save themselves. No one can be trusted besides the younger brother sleeping at Jack's back, everyone else in his family has abandoned or betrayed him (or both), and the people who want to help him bring potentially deadly attention to his existence at the same time he desperately needs to remain unnoticed. I had mixed feelings about the omniscient narrator's chapter openers. They offer useful information, but I tend to want a story to unfold without hints in certain directions (although I didn't predict the specifics of what occurred). This element made the book feel young adult to me more than anything else. What Beauty There Is is a story about darkness, desperation, unlikely loyalty, and, ultimately, brave young characters in tough spots trying to cobble together something close to hope. The main protagonists are young, but their concerns are weighty. Anderson's beautifully spare writing about the brutal winter and the pressing crises of hunger, cold, and danger from nefarious forces kept me on the edge of my seat. The brothers' relationship was a heartbreaking joy to read. And I'm mesmerized by this gorgeous cover art. I received a prepublication edition of this book (publication date is today, April 6) courtesy of Roaring Brook Press and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? This is Cory Anderson's debut. I love a brave-young-protagonist setup, and the brothers' love and determination were fantastic. I can't wait to read what Anderson writes next.

Boulley weaves fantastically fluid and frequent details of indigenous tradition into Daunis's everyday life, pivotal moments, and her personal and cultural history. Teenaged Daunis Fontaine has never fit into her hometown or the Ojibwe reservation. She must stay home from college to care for her ailing mother, which puts on hold her hopes for her future. When she meets Jamie, a handsome young man on her brother's hockey team, he seems like a much-needed bright spot in her life--but Daunis is sure that he's hiding something. And when she witnesses a shocking murder, Daunis finds herself in the middle of an FBI investigation of a drug ring. With her knowledge of traditional Ojibwe medicine and her brave willingness to go undercover, Daunis unearths dark secrets that could tear apart her community. Boulley explores Daunis's complex feelings of loyalty and duty to her community—but her potential betrayal of (and by) individuals within it. I was distracted by some jumpy transitions between action, thought, and feeling, especially in the earlier sections of the book, but Boulley weaves fantastically fluid and frequent details of indigenous tradition into Daunis's everyday life, pivotal moments, and her personal and cultural history. Daunis is a wonderfully self-possessed teenage girl character I loved following through her story. I received a prepublication version of this book courtesy of Henry Holt and Company and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Boulley's story is soon to be adapted at Netflix for TV with the Obamas' production company, Higher Ground. I mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/10/21 Edition.

I was happy to spend time with Gen and Attolia again in this sixth and final book of Turner's Queen's Thief series. I love these books! Return of the Thief is the sixth and final book in Turner's fantastic Queen's Thief series. Turner's series was published over a period of almost twenty-five years, and the story trail traces the charismatic character of Gen through consistently and wonderfully unexpected developments related to plot, character arc, point of view, morality, origin stories, conflict, despair, and love. Gen is the uneasy key to the peace between the lands of Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia. He is in love with and married to a wonderfully strong woman, Irene, "Attolia"--and she is the real power behind the throne. Although he is high king, Gen's temper still flares, he behaves spontaneously when he might stop and consider, and his grudging affection for others sometimes complicates his view. He begins the book by bristling at his necessary role as high king, but he soon must lead his people through the conflict of his lifetime. I had a tough time following the political machinations in this book, but I was just happy spending time with Gen and Attolia (and Eddis and Sounis) again. Turner offers a different perspective in each her books (whether from Gen's first-person or third-person point of view or other characters'), and this book's point of view was especially intriguing. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I listed the Queen's Thief series in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series, and I mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/24/21 Edition.

Ta-da! My very favorite books from March! Here are the books I most loved reading during the past month: a beautiful story of heartbreak and searches for redemption; short stories that pack a punch and offer depth and lots to consider; a wonderfully offbeat feminist Western; a captivating multigenerational family story told through two timelines; the final book in a darkly playful young adult fantasy series; a quirky, campy mystery and revenge fantasy; and a young adult thriller with outlandish circumstances and yearnings for intimacy that feel real. What are some of your recent favorite reads--or books that weren't for you? Let's do some Bossy book talking! 01 We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker Whitaker's story builds into a tale of heartbreak and desperate hopes for redemption; it folds back upon itself with unexpected turns and considerable depth. Walk is the chief of police in the small coastal California town where he grew up. Decades earlier his account of a terrible event sent his best friend Vincent to prison. Vincent has tried to make his own suffering as great as possible behind bars by eschewing distraction and comfort, and now he's about to be released. Duchess is a thirteen-year-old girl trying to keep her family together. Her mother Star is old friends with Walk and Vincent, and when Vincent reappears, the tenuous peace and calm Duchess and her steady family friend Walk have been able to secure for her household are disrupted. Can Walk and Duchess somehow prevent Vincent and Star from destroying themselves and everyone who cares about them, or are Walk and Duchess inadvertently adding to the collapse? Whitaker's story builds into a tale of heartbreak and desperate hopes for redemption that folded back upon itself with unexpected turns and considerable depth. There are mysterious forces and machinations, many of which remain unclear to the reader until late in the book, when major unraveling occurs. For my full review of this book, please see We Begin at the End. 02 The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans There's so much to unpack here; Evans's story themes are often haunting, always powerful, and wonderfully nuanced. In The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans offers short stories centering around themes of race, relationships, identity, the fallibility of those shaping historical "fact," grief, and loss. She beautifully and powerfully illustrates essential, deep truths by tracing moments in her characters' everyday lives. In the longest story in the book, at approximately 100 pages, "The Office of Historical Corrections," a black student from Washington, DC, finds herself involved in unraveling a complicated historical mystery that extends over generations, involves her closest friendship, and shakes the basis of her career. Evans explores what is accepted as truth, as fact, and as history, as well as who has the power to shift that narrative--and at what cost. The themes here are often haunting, always powerful, and wonderfully nuanced, even when the scenes (the artist's exhibition, the actual on-the-spot printed and posted corrections of "fact," and others) stretch metaphors to their limits. For my full review of this book, please see The Office of Historical Corrections. 03 Outlawed by Anna North North provides intrigue, an exploration of gender and power roles, tales of unconventional friendship, and enough shoot-outs and danger to make this a feminist Western I couldn't stop reading. Ada, suspected of being a witch, flees to a convent, then, through an unlikely convent-to-outlaw pipeline, joins up with The Hole in the Wall Gang, a group of outlaws led by a larger-than-life local legend, The Kid. Ada serves as the motley crew's healer, learns to shoot, takes part in various schemes--some ill-fated--and begins to understand that the group's intention is to effect sweeping change by wielding its power for good. But grandiose plans don't always go off as planned, and making any change in a society so entrenched in prejudice and superstition is going to be tricky, if it's possible at all. North provides intrigue, an exploration of gender and power roles, tales of unconventional friendship, and enough shoot-outs and danger to make this a feminist Western I couldn't stop reading. Plus: I love this cover! For my full review of this book, please see Outlawed. 04 The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan Characters cope with lost dreams and find ways to (often clumsily) come together through their shared pain. The vibrancy of Beirut is celebrated throughout. Alyan provides a multigenerational story with plenty of secrets, messy interpersonal family interactions, love, and loss--all set against a background of Beirut, a city shaped by and "smoldering with the legacy of war," as well as the refugee camps and life in Damascus. The story is told in two timelines, one as young Idris and Mazna are brought together by tragedy and build their life together upon secrets, and the second during the family's imperfect reunion in Beirut. There are tragic lies and lies of omission, mistakes, missed chances, and moments that drastically change the fates of multiple families and generations. Characters cope with lost dreams, fading possibilities, boredom, and disappointment, but they also clumsily come together, fighting through pain, working through misunderstanding, and forgiving each other for terrible offenses. There are funny, tangled, heartwarming exchanges. The vibrancy of Beirut is especially present throughout--the story celebrates the city's music, art, and love. For my full review of this book, please see The Arsonists' City. 05 The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black In this satisfying final book in the trilogy, Black's characters show dark humor and trade biting remarks, and creatures of all types jostle for power, snipe, battle, and fall in love. The Queen of Nothing is the final book in Black's Folk of the Air trilogy (I mentioned the series in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series). As always, Black's characters show dark humor and trade biting remarks, and creatures of all types interact, jostle for power, snipe, battle, and fall in love. I loved having more time with my favorite minor character, the plain-speaking, tough, brutal but fair Grima Mog, and witnessing her ascendance. I feared any Vivi and Heather resolution would be unsatisfying, but it felt just right. I love the tone of this trilogy: playful, otherworldly, and with faulted, greedy, scared, strong, angry, passionate, complex creatures. Black offers wonderfully twisted humor, various satisfying endings (including regarding Jude and Cardan) that did justice to the series, plus the series ending I didn’t even know I wanted. For my full review of this book, please see The Queen of Nothing. 06 Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano Cosimano's mystery has a wonderfully quirky setup and campy tone, and Finlay's missteps add to the darkly playful feeling of the book. Finlay Donovan is an author and a recently single mom, divorced from a cheating man (side note: he and his gloating fiancé are both in need of a major reckoning). She's struggling both emotionally and financially as she tries to support her two young children. After a series of almost slapstick misunderstandings, Finlay is left a mysterious note implying that she is involved in something sinister--and which offers her a hit job. Cosimano's mystery has a wonderfully quirky setup and campy tone. There are absurd disguises, spur-of-the-moment plans (both successful and disastrous), and, in light of recent morally and legally questionable events and Finlay's tendency to become entangled in them, extremely inconvenient levels of intimacy with her sister the cop as well as the cute police officer she introduces Finlay to. All of this makes the book feel darkly playful. And that ending! Cosimano perfectly sets the scene for the next book in the series. For my full review of this book, please see Finlay Donovan Is Killing It. 07 She's Too Pretty to Burn by Wendy Heard Heard's young adult thriller was a lightning-fast read, and there's a yearning for connection between the two main protagonists that feels real and true. Heard's young adult thriller follows the twists and turns at the intersection of the lives of three volatile young people--bored photographer Veronica; her best friend, mischievous performance art rebel Nico; and their new friend, Mick, who hasn't quite found her place in the world outside of being a competitive swimmer. This was a lightning-fast read for me. The stakes quickly ratchet up up up in She's Too Pretty to Burn so that the characters find themselves making life-and-death decisions, and their missteps aren't without serious consequences. While the young people's circumstances build to be almost outlandishly complicated and disastrous, Heard presents what feels like a true yearning for connection between the two main protagonists, and that kept me hooked for anything else she threw at me. For my full review of this book, please see She's Too Pretty to Burn.

Silver offers a story with a missed-chances premise in which romance, drama, and an unwavering hope in fated love are the linchpins. One Day in December offers a missed-chances setup with enormous repercussions. Laurie spies a man out her bus window standing in the December snow. Their eyes meet, and she can't explain it, except to feel that this is what people mean when they say "love at first sight." The bus pulls away before she can speak to the man or even find out his name. She knows it's ridiculous and fanciful, but the idea that they're fated to be together feels real, and for a year Laurie can't get him out of her head, searching everywhere she goes for that face and that feeling. Then her roommate and best friend Sarah introduces her to her new boyfriend, who's she's falling for quickly and fully--and it's Him. His name is Jack. And Laurie's heart is broken. She can't tell Sarah the truth, and she's not even sure Jack remembers their non-encounter--much less that he might have felt the same spark. This is angst-ridden and rooooooomantic. Silver provides readers with lots of tears and drama, gasping, longing, and breathlessness. Some of the characters had juvenile-seeming reactions that I found frustrating (for example, calling a moment's sighting without even speaking “love” and clinging to it for years--YEARS!--and a marriage's upheaval when one partner doesn’t want to move for the other spouse's work). Ultimately I wasn't sure the male love interest was shown to be worth so much agony and energy. However, I love a can’t-be-together/must-be-together setup, and this is a biggie. A minor note: I love wine, but there is So Much Wine-Drinking in this book that I began to feel distracted by the number of mentions of this. Watch yer livers, characters! I listened to this as an audiobook as wisely recommended by my friend Jennifer, who correctly stated that the British accents are glorious to listen to. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Josie Silver also wrote an irresistible second-chances premise in her book The Two Lives of Lydia Hill. I first mentioned One Day in December in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/24/21 Edition.

Heard's young adult thriller was a lightning-fast read, and there's a yearning for connection between the two main protagonists that feels real and true. Heard's young adult thriller follows the twists and turns at the intersection of three volatile young people--bored photographer Veronica; her best friend, mischievous performance art rebel Nico; and their new friend, Mick, who hasn't quite found her place in the world outside of being a competitive swimmer. Mick, whose mother is emotionally unavailable (and barely physically present), has a lot to figure out and responsibilities weighing her down, meanwhile Veronica is pushing Mick past her comfort level into vulnerability. The girls fall hard for each other--but they've built their early relationship on lies that could destroy their possibility of true intimacy. With Nico's troublemaking and incessant challenges to the status quo serving as a catalyst for fast-paced changes, everything begins to spiral out of control, threatening the girls' safety and the community around them. Veronica and Mick will have to figure out if they can trust each other with their lives. I loved the girls' young love, but I was haunted by the fact that their relationship seemed doomed because of its basis in lies. Heard allows the teens to make realistically messy mistakes and experience devastating betrayals, but to also bravely try to trust each other again. The stakes quickly ratchet up up up in She's Too Pretty to Burn so that the characters find themselves making life-and-death decisions, and their missteps aren't without serious consequences. This was a lightning-fast read for me, and while the young people's circumstances build to be almost outlandishly complicated and disastrous, Heard presents what feels like a true yearning for connection between the two main protagonists, and that kept me hooked for anything else she threw at me. I was haunted by how Mick's desperate situation and lack of options pushed her to say yes to uncomfortable compromises and take part in things she would likely otherwise have avoided. I received a prepublication edition of this book (published March 30) courtesy of Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? She's Too Pretty to Burn is a fast read and I was in for all of it. Heard is also the author of adult thrillers The Kill Club and Hunting Annabelle, and she co-hosts the Unlikeable Female Characters podcast.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading three books that are about to be published: Cory Anderson's debut, a dark young adult novel about young brothers desperately trying to stay together and stay alive in rural Idaho; Wendy Heard's fast-paced California-set thriller about an infatuation between two young women, dangerous risks, and a web of lies that may get them both killed; and Jennifer McMahon's dive into a family's haunting history that has mysterious, powerful present-day repercussions. Which books are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms? 01 What Beauty There Is by Cory Anderson In the young adult novel What Beauty There Is, Jack and his brother are painfully poor and living alone in rural Idaho. It's winter, it's cold, and it's tough enough to simply survive. But if Jack can't find the drug money his father stole before heading to prison, things will get worse: his younger brother will be sent into foster care. There's no real choice to make--Jack would never allow his brother to go. So now he just needs to do some dangerous digging into matters that seem to generally end with jail time...or death. Meanwhile, nearby, Ava's been kept quiet and controlled by her father her whole life--and he's after the same money Jack so desperately needs. Ava must decide whether she'll stick by her cruel father or if she's willing to help the brothers save themselves. Cory Anderson's debut is a story about darkness, desperation, loyalty, and cobbling together something close to hope. I'm mesmerized by this gorgeous cover art. I received a prepublication edition of this book (its publication date is April 6) courtesy of Roaring Brook Press and NetGalley. 02 She's Too Pretty to Burn by Wendy Heard Heard's young adult thriller follows the twists and turns at the intersection of three volatile young people--bored photographer Veronica; her best friend, mischievous performance art rebel Nico; and their new friend, Mick, who hasn't quite found her place in the world outside of being a competitive swimmer. Mick, whose mother is emotionally unavailable (and hardly physically present), has a lot to figure out and responsibilities weighing her down, meanwhile Veronica is pushing Mick past her comfort level into vulnerability. The girls fall hard for each other--but they've built their early relationship on lies that could destroy their connection. With Nico's troublemaking and incessant challenges to the status quo serving as a catalyst for fast-paced changes, the girls will have to figure out if they can trust each other as everything begins to spiral out of control, threatening both their lives. I received a prepublication edition of this book (to be published March 30) courtesy of Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley. 03 The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon The Drowning Kind is the newest story by McMahon, the author of The Winter People and many other books. When Jax, a social worker, gets a series of frantic missed calls from her sister Lexie, she assumes Lexie is having another manic episode. She'll have plenty of time to try to cope with her estranged sister's mess later. But disaster strikes, and Jax finds herself trying to unravel the twisted, complicated history of her family and its land--a history Lexie was researching and had become haunted by. McMahon's modern-day ghost story delves back into the family's goings-on in 1929, when Jax and Lexie's ancestor Ethel Monroe, desperate to have a baby, may have made a dark bargain--with terrible repercussions echoing for generations to come. I received a prepublication edition of this book (its publication date is April 6) courtesy of Gallery Books and NetGalley.

Do you love witchy books like I do? I love a good witch-focused book, and I've been wanting to put together a Greedy Reading List on this theme for a while, but ultimately I was too greedy even for myself and I couldn't decide which titles to include. It was paralyzing. I also have a handful of witchy books here waiting to be read (specifically A Witch in Time, The Witch's Heart, and the upcoming Hour of the Witch and The Nature of Witches), not to mention other witchy books I've been meaning to read like Akata Witch, The Age of Witches, and The Black Witch. I thought some of these to-reads might end up on this list, but I can't wait around forever while I manage my own unwieldy book stack. ("Know thyself" and all of that.) But meanwhile just look at these covers! Anyway, all of this brings us to this list! Here are six varied books about witches, some I might call modern witchy classics (Wicked and Circe) and some that I seem to keep mentioning on this site (The Winter of the Witch, anyone?). I didn't include some obvious options like the Harry Potter series or Roald Dahl's The Witches, nor did I include the oldie but goodie I was entranced by when I was young as my first witchy read, The Witch of Blackbird Pond. If you like books about magic, here are two other Bossy Bookworm Greedy Reading Lists you might enjoy: Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series and Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love. What are the witchy books you would include as favorites? Interesting newer witchy tales or classics you love? 01 The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow In The Once and Future Witches, Harrow writes about three bitter and broken sisters who learned powerful ways and words at the knee of their witchy grandmother Mags, then were separated by tragedy. These days there's no more witching and no more will for spells and change in the world. Or so most people believe. When the long-lost sisters do unexpectedly cross each other's paths again at last, the world's seams split, offering a glimpse into another land, a buffeting wind, and a burst of terrible power. I adored how Harrow intermingled the women's suffrage movement with the reemergence of witching and women's efforts to reclaim power in matters large and small. While at a few points I felt like the dramatic situations or dialogue distracted me from what felt like the heart of the story (the Eastwoods' helping women advance their everyday struggles to gain more control over their lives), I was willing to suspend my disbelief in order to dive into the witchy wonder here. For my full review of this book, please see The Once and Future Witches. 02 The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden This is the third and final book in Katherine Arden's strong, fanciful, and often wonderfully dark Winternight trilogy. The Winter of the Witch is set in fourteenth century Russia, complete with rich folklore, conflicts between those who follow the old gods and those who follow the new, and Vasya's gloriously persistent bravery, which she displays even when anyone with any sense would be tempted to give up altogether. The weight of the world is on Vasya's shoulders in this book as she attempts to survive while saving the magical Morozko, her beloved horse, and Russia itself. Katherine Arden finishes out the trilogy in typical mesmerizing fashion, with her usual masterful balance of magic, religion, love, passion, family duty, adventure, and search for meaning—and all with a main protagonist who’s your basic badass young Russian witch finding herself and Handling It all over the damn empire. I listened to the audiobook, narrated perfectly by Kathleen Gati. For my full review of this book, please see The Winter of the Witch. This book also appears on the Greedy Reading List Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love. 03 Wicked by Gregory Maguire In case you missed this multimillion-copy bestselling book (or the Tony award-winning Broadway musical based upon it, or the fantastic soundtrack to that musical, or the twenty-five-year anniversary of the book's publication)--well, maybe you should take a look-see at this one. Or maybe it's time to read this modern witchy classic again. I delighted in reading the Wicked Witch of the West story turned on its head as Maguire traced the origins of Elphaba, a strong-willed, green-skinned young girl; explored the social pressures of Munchkinland; offered a complex back story for the traditional villain character from The Wizard of Oz; and poked holes in the beatific reputation of Glinda the Good Witch. Characters and situations here aren't black-and-white. Maguire shatters the reader's preconceived notions while crafting a richly imagined world--one which goes beyond L. Frank Baum's details from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and emerges as a multilayered and often unexpected creation all its own. I loved that Maguire was able to shift readers' feelings about characters we've long thought we've known and loved--or believed we despised--toward considering more complicated and interesting possibilities. 04 Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin Serpent & Dove is Shelby Mahurin's first book in the young adult trilogy of the same name. Louise is a thief who keeps the company of prostitutes and lawbreakers. She's a witch who has sworn off magic; she fled her powerful mother and coven, but they didn't want to let her go. Reid is a straitlaced young man for whom things are black-and-white, clearly right and wrong. He doesn't break rules, and in fact he works for the Church as a Chasseur, hunting down witches for destruction. Things quickly get complicated, and there's a twist: circumstances demand that instinctual nemeses and diametrically opposed characters Lou and Reid...get married. It's a love that must not be--yet they must bind themselves together! From enemies to husband and wife, and major secrets persist--the drama is great. Meanwhile, all is not what it seems. There are instances of trickery related to lineage and other similar surprises. Whenever characters believe other people are unequivocally good or evil, just know: they're about to get their heads wrecked. Serpent & Dove was soooo unabashedly dramatic and angsty, and I was smiling at all of it in delight. I listened to this as an audiobook. For my full review of this book, see Serpent & Dove. 05 A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness This book--! (Have you watched the TV show based on the books? I am all in for the angsty drama and for Matthew Goode in this role.) So I'll admit that when I began reading this book, I found myself stifling some giggles and texting my friend Leah who'd just read it to discuss bits of dialogue or minor plot moments. There is a lot more sexy yoga here than I could have dreamed of, plenty of romance, so very much wine appreciation, and copious older-man-guides-the-young-ingenue scenes. But once I settled in, I gleefully tore through what felt like a mix of the detail and romance of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books and the angst, emotions, and forbidden love of the Twilight series. I could've done with even more more more magic and witchiness. I think the second book in the All Souls series (Shadow of Night) is even stronger, as it delves more deeply into magical processes and digs into significantly more detail. There are four books in this series from Harkness, and I found the others even more magical than this first installment. 06 Circe by Madeline Miller To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. Circe, daughter of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, is an odd child. She's not striking and in fact, she's seemingly without power. But she grows into her glorious witchy wonder, and her abilities to transform her foes are revealed--along with her dangerous potential to threaten the gods. When Zeus, fearful of what she might be capable of, banishes her to a deserted island, Circe perfects her witchy powers, tames beasts, considers the world and her place in it, simmers and plans, and entertains well-known figures from mythology, including Icarus, the Minotaur, Medea, and Odysseus. We are sorry, we are sorry. Sorry you were caught, I said. Sorry that you thought I was weak, but you were wrong. Circe is a wonderfully faulted, curious, powerful witch. I was in for this book hook, line, and sinker.

Cosimano's mystery has a wonderfully quirky setup and campy tone, and Finlay's missteps add to the darkly playful feeling of the book. Finlay Donovan is an author and a recently single mom, divorced from a cheating man (side note: he and his gloating fiancé are both in need of a major reckoning). She's struggling both emotionally and financially as she tries to support her two young children. The morning has been a disaster. Her daughter cut her own hair (and bloodied her scalp), her babysitter didn't show up, and the unpaid electricity bill finally caught up to her, so now she's trapped by an unpowered garage door. To cap it all off, she's late for a meeting she dreads, in which she'll be delivering the news to her agent that yet again she doesn't have the manuscript she's promised her publisher. But the women's impassioned brunchtime discussion about the plot of Finlay's suspense novel--along with a bloody cloth (which she used earlier to stanch her daughter's bleeding skin) that's sticking out of her bag, a roll of duct tape used for an earlier emergency fix, and Finlay's vehemently expressed ideas about the future monetary demands she'll make for her next project--catch the attention of a nearby diner. The woman mistakenly interprets what's happening and leaves Finlay with a mysterious note implying that Finlay is involved in something sinister--and offering her a hit job. Cosimano's mystery has a wonderfully quirky setup and campy tone. We know through Finlay's point of view what she is and isn't doing, but people keep dropping dead around her. She's at least tangentially wrapped up in the deaths, but not a cold-blooded killer. Dangerous people and their high-stakes decisions are swirling around her so that she's fairly confident she's in a precarious situation, yet her disguises, spur-of-the-moment plans (both successful and disastrous), and the absurdity of her intimacy with certain characters in light of recent events (including her former nanny, who knows everything; her sister the cop and the cute cop and cute bartender she runs into during her various schemes, who do not)--all of this makes the book feel darkly playful. And that ending! Cosimano perfectly sets the scene for the next book in the series. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Cosimano is also the author of the young adult mystery series Nearly Gone, the young adult fantasy series Seasons of the Storm, and the young adult books Holding Smoke and The Suffering Tree. This is her first book for adults. I mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/24/21 Edition.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading the newest book from Elle Cosimano, in which a misunderstanding has potentially enormous life-and-death repercussions for a young author; the final book in Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series, in which the impetuous Gen must learn to do what he hates: lead and be responsible in order to keep his people safe; and the gloriously angsty, romantic, missed-chances story from Josie Silver. I'd love to hear: which books are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms? 01 Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano Finlay Donovan is an author and a recently single mom, divorced from a cheating man (his character and his gloating fiance are both in need of a reckoning ASAP). She's struggling emotionally and financially to support her two young children. The morning has been a disaster. Her daughter cut her own hair (and bloodied her scalp), her babysitter didn't show up, and the unpaid electricity bill finally caught up to her. She's late for a meeting she dreads: delivering the news to her agent that yet again she doesn't have the manuscript she's promised her publisher. But the women's impassioned brunchtime discussion about the plot of Finlay's suspense novel--along with the bloody cloth in her bag that she used earlier to stanch her daughter's bleeding skin, duct tape used for an emergency fix, and Finlay's vehement ideas about the future monetary demands she'll make for her next novel--catch the attention of a nearby diner, who mistakenly interprets what's happening and leaves Finlay with a mysterious note implying that Finlay is involved in something sinister. 02 The Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner The Return of the Thief is the sixth and final book in Turner's Queen's Thief series (which I listed in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series). The series was published over a period of almost twenty-five years, and the story trail traces the charismatic Gen through what are consistently and, for me, wonderfully unexpected developments related to plot, character arc, point of view, morality, origin stories, conflict, despair, and love. Gen is the uneasy key to the peace between the lands of Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia. He is in love with and married to a wonderfully strong woman, Irene, "Attolia"--and she is the real power behind the throne. Although he is high king, Gen's temper still flares, he behaves spontaneously when he might stop and consider, his grudging affection for others sometimes complicates his view. So far he still bristles at his necessary role as high king, but he'll soon have to lead his people through the conflict of his lifetime. 03 One Day in December by Josie Silver Josie Silver, who also wrote The Two Lives of Lydia Hill, in One Day in December offers a missed-chances setup with enormous repercussions. Laurie spies a man out her bus window standing in the December snow. Their eyes meet, and she can't explain it, except to feel that this is what people mean when they say "love at first sight." The bus pulls away before she can speak to the man or even find out his name. It's ridiculous, and fanciful, but the idea that they're fated to be together feels real, and for a year she can't get him out of her head, searching everywhere she goes for that face and that feeling. Then her roommate and best friend Sarah introduces her to her new boyfriend, who's she's falling for quickly and fully--and it's Him. His name is Jack. And Laurie's heart is broken. She can't tell Sarah the truth, and she's not even sure Jack remembers their non-encounter--much less that he might have felt the same spark. I'm listening to this as an audiobook as wisely recommended by my friend Jenn, who correctly stated that the British accents are glorious to listen to.

In this satisfying final book in the trilogy, Black's characters show darkly funny humor and trade biting remarks, and creatures of all types jostle for power, snipe, battle, and fall in love. The Queen of Nothing is the final book in Black's Folk of the Air trilogy (I mentioned the series in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series). Jude is the exiled Queen of Faerie, scrambling to make a living in the human world by freelancing, carrying out petty jobs of thievery and intimidation. She's furious at King Cardan's betrayal, and she's biding her time until she can exact her revenge. When her twin sister Taryn arrives in the human world, fearing for her life, Jude finds herself drawn back into Elfhame, with its power struggles, backstabbing, and elaborate schemes--including those of her fickle, murderous father figure, Madoc. As always, Black's characters show darkly funny humor and trade biting remarks, and creatures of all types interact, jostle for power, snipe, battle, and fall in love. I loved having more time with my favorite character, the plain-speaking, tough, brutal but fair Grima Mog, and witnessing her ascendance. I feared any Vivi and Heather resolution would be unsatisfying, but it felt just right. I love the tone of this trilogy: playful, otherworldly, and with faulted, greedy, scared, strong, angry, passionate, complex creatures. Black offers wonderfully twisted humor, various satisfying endings (including regarding Jude and Cardan) that did justice to the series, plus the ending I didn’t even know I wanted. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Throughout the trilogy I enjoyed the forays back and forth from the human world to the faerie, the various things-aren’t-what-they-seem plot elements, and how things weren’t black-and-white. The dark humor was fantastic. I mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/17/21 Edition.

Characters cope with lost dreams and find ways to (often clumsily) come together through their shared pain. The vibrancy of Beirut is celebrated throughout. As we say in Arabic, Time doesn't change; time reveals. In the novel The Arsonists' City, Hala Alyan presents a complicated situation for an extended family in which a Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three first-generation American children with an ancestral home in Beirut come to terms with deep loss. They return to Beirut, each broken in a way, each searching for home, fulfillment, history, peace, or all of the above, as they attempt to pull together again. With plenty of secrets, messy interpersonal family interactions, love, and loss--all against a background of Beirut, a city shaped by and "smoldering with the legacy of war," as well as the refugee camps and life in Damascus. Mazna and Idris's family also considers the dichotomy of the privilege they enjoy in Beirut, with a live-in housekeeper in their comfortable home, and the prejudice they experience in the United States--as well as the hierarchy of "brown" there: In America they are considered brown... There is something self-righteous that lives alongside that marginalization, the mispronounced names, the Your English is so..., the sideways glances in department stores. But there are browner bodies out there. There are women who take care of your grandfather...women whose own families are thousands of miles away, women who are washing your plates and washing vegetables for your dinner. The story is told in two timelines, one as young Idris and Mazna are brought together by tragedy and build their life together upon secrets, and the second during the family's imperfect reunion in Beirut. There are tragic lies and lies of omission, mistakes, missed chances, and moments that drastically change the fates of multiple families and generations. Characters cope with lost dreams, fading possibilities, boredom, and disappointment, but they also clumsily come together, fighting through pain, working through misunderstanding, and forgiving each other for terrible offenses. There are funny, tangled, heartwarming exchanges. The vibrancy of Beirut is especially present throughout--the story celebrates the city's music, art, and love. I received a prepublication copy of this book courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/3/21 Edition. Alyan is also the author of Salt Houses, You're Not a Girl in a Movie, and The Twenty-Ninth Year.

Aren't young adult books just the best? Young adult is one of my favorite genres to read for fun and to edit. The main protagonists are often figuring out the world, their place in it, and who they are and want to be. They're making mistakes and realizing where they draw their own lines in the sand. Things are big, and young people's feelings about all of it understandably vacillate between joy, dread, confusion, and wonder. I could have listed so many fantastic young adult titles here, but I picked these varied, wonderful six. Some other Bossy Bookworm Greedy Reading Lists you might like featuring young adult books: Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series, Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love, and Six Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Novels. You can search to find alllll of my young adult posts on this site--some are part of a series, others stand on their own--by going to the Bossy Book Reviews part of the site menu and then to Search by Category, then choosing Young Adult. What are your favorite young adult books that make you delight in feeling all the feelings? 01 Believarexic by J.J. Johnson I guess I should preface this glowing review by noting that I worked on this book before it was published. (And I had an uncharacteristically tough time noting any editorial issues because I was so captivated by the story and kept having to go back to force myself to read it with an editor's eye.) I also have a t-shirt with this book title on it. And I also adore the author. So why the Believarexic obsession? In Johnson's book, fifteen-year-old Jennifer struggles with an eating disorder and enters a residential treatment program to try to heal physically and emotionally. The center and its methods aren't what she'd imagined, and she must cope with more than she could have predicted, including accusations, stressors, confusion, the challenges and joys of various interpersonal relations, physical and emotional discomfort, and important realizations that come about in unexpected ways. Johnson transports you to her late 1980s teenage bubble and allows you to live through her sharply life-changing experiences alongside her. Her young voice is honest and lovely and funny and powerful. I wanted to abandon everything to tear through this book. Johnson also wrote the wonderful books The Theory of Everything and This Girl Is Different. 02 A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi It's been a year since the events of 9/11, and Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who lives in the United States, has been living with the uncomfortable, sometimes frightening fallout. She's judged and suspected everywhere she goes because of the way she looks. Shirin has learned to brace herself against prejudice because she wears a hijab, or because of her religion. She sticks with her brother, coping with her stress by break-dancing (this part is, of course, glorious) with her brother and focusing on music. But then Ocean James comes along. It's like Ocean is living in another world from Shirin, but he sees her, really sees her, and she finds herself wanting to let someone into her own world for the first time in a long time. Oh, I loved this book! Mafi provides such excruciating teen angst and an unfolding first love with rich layers of diversity--plus prejudice, fear, and ignorance that complicates everything. The ending felt rushed, but my love for this book outweighs any disappointment about the ending by a mile. 03 All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven Violet is still reeling from her sister's death. She's eager to graduate from high school and escape her small Indiana town, but the days are interminably long. Theodore Finch considers his balance between life and death every day, weighing the factors that entice him to keep going and those that tempt him to stop. When Violet and Theodore encounter each other, they find that they can finally let down their guards, showing each other the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of themselves. Could what's between them even be love? Or are they simply linked by their pain and their honesty--and is that bond enough to bring them peace? In All the Bright Places, Niven offers a lovely, wonderfully odd, sometimes sad story, with vivid characters, hope, devastating loss, and love. (I see from the Netflix logo on the cover that this is a movie now! Have you seen it? Any thoughts?) 04 Far from the Tree by Robin Benway In Far from the Tree, Benway examines the pain of a young woman’s pregnancy and her permanently changed life; an emotionally barricaded, lifelong foster child’s involuntary and ongoing compulsion to sabotage familial stability; and the ambivalent search for a parent who left her children behind without any answers or history to help anchor them in the world. Some elements in Far From the Tree felt too unrealistically easy (although I admit that cruising along with the story made me happy at the same time): the lack of conflicts (or any real missteps) and the instant camaraderie between the stranger-siblings, the full parental acceptance of teen pregnancy, the maturity of the pregnant teen herself on all fronts, and my most nitpicky issue, which was admittedly tiny yet pulled me out of the story each time it occurred: the just-met siblings’ jarring (to me) use of nicknames otherwise only used by their intimate people. I know they yearned for connections with each other, but this didn't seem to fit. I loved the various nerdy parents the most. And I realize that I am therefore old. The premise, the discovery of family, the exploration of what "family" even means--I loved all of these aspects of Benway's novel. 05 Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner Carver's life was rocked after he sent a text to his three best friends friends moments before the car they were in crashed, killing them all. Now everyone--Eli's angry twin sister with her attempts to freeze out Carver at school; Mars's father with his push for a criminal investigation-- seems to be blaming Carver for his beloved friends' deaths. But Carter is taking self-loathing to another level all by himself. Can a new therapist; an unlikely, grieving girlfriend; and Blake's grandmother help Carver come to terms with what's happened and help him find a way to move forward? In Goodbye Days, we get what feels like a genuine peek into the boys’ friendship via their really funny banter and their endearingly oddball, silly, spot-on, laid-bare-honest train-of-thought discussions, as well as through their plausible, Carver-imagined exchanges. I adored all of this. This isn’t the point, but I admit that I was distracted by no one even temporarily slinging some of the immense amount of potential blame toward the person who answers a text while driving rather the person that sent it. I expected this to be touched on, if only in the heat of the moment. When wild and awful, heartbreaking thoughts are flying after a tragedy, and when some people are focused on settling responsibility (and while Carver is being vilified), this felt like something that might come up. Carver’s plunge into the penance he feels he needs to experience, especially with Mars’s dad, slayed me. Goodbye Days is so very very sad and so very very funny. This is a gem from Zentner, who also wrote The Serpent King and Rayne and Delilah's Midnite Matinee. His book In the Wild Light, a book about best friends set in Appalachia, will be published in August. 06 Driving by Starlight by Anat Deracine Leena and Mishie are sixteen-year-olds living in Saudi Arabia. They listen to forbidden music, secretly wear Western clothing, and otherwise rebel in small ways against the Saudi cultural police. Driving by Starlight is a story about family, independence, gender inequality, and a youthful yearning for freedom. I loved the strong female protagonists and their fire and grit and growth. Both of the more modern-day storylines were wrapped up neatly with a bow. I would have been in favor of having the romantic element being tied up without the Eve aspect, or having neither of them tied up at all. The “end of movie”-type closure for both felt too convenient, and even a little dismissive of the complexities of the time and of the specific difficulties of the characters' situations. However, I love love loved this book. Driving by Starlight is a deep, lovely, meaningful story with a vivid Saudi Arabian setting and conflicts related to religion, friendship, gender, and family. With true friendship, loyalty, and fantastic, clever, clever ladies overcoming obstacles in their paths.

The first book in Mahurin's young adult fantasy trilogy was unabashedly dramatic and angsty, and I was smiling at all of it in delight. Serpent & Dove is Shelby Mahurin's first book in the young adult trilogy of the same name (Blood & Honey is the second book, with the third and final book, Gods & Monsters, set for publication this summer). Louise is a thief who keeps the company of prostitutes and lawbreakers. She's a witch who has sworn off magic; she fled her powerful mother and coven, but they didn't want to let her go. Reid is a straitlaced young man for whom things are black-and-white, clearly right and wrong. He doesn't break rules, and in fact he works for the Church as a Chasseur, hunting down witches for destruction. Things quickly get complicated, and there's a twist: circumstances demand that nemeses and diametrically opposed characters Lou and Reid...get MARRIED. It's a love that must not be--but they have to bind themselves together! All is not what it seems. There are instances of trickery as related to lineage and other similar surprises. Whenever characters believe other people are unequivocally good or evil, just know: they're about to get their heads wrecked. Because our main protagonist is hiding from her mother and the coven, who desire to use Lou to further their ends, her magic was surprisingly limited, and her witchiness less pronounced than her identity as a thief and as a young woman fighting against the establishment and The Man--until she marries The Man himself. Whoops! (Her gloriously foul mouth and cunning thievery are evident throughout.) When characters are on the verge of revealing a key point, expect an inconvenient interruption that prevents it. There's a brief, sexy, rooooomantic discovery-encounter that's in keeping with the rest of the book's tone and will-they/won't-they setup. The drama is full force here, so buckle up! Serpent & Dove was soooo unabashedly dramatic and angsty and I was smiling at all of it in delight. I listened to this as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? The second in Mahurin's Serpent & Dove series is Blood & Honey, with the third book, Gods & Monsters, set for publication in August. I mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/17/21 Edition.

What I'm Reading Now: Three Fun Fantasy Stories I'm reading the newest book from Naomi Novik, which showcases excellent dark humor within a deadly magical school; the final book in Holly Black's Folk of the Air trilogy, which offers great banter and an appealingly antagonistic/lovey-dovey relationship between frenemies; and the gloriously dramatic young adult debut from Shelby Mahurin (with a second in the series already published and a third coming out this year). I'd love to hear: which books are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms? 01 A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik A Deadly Education is the first in Novik's Scholomance series, which is set at a magical school with two routes out: graduation or death. Deadly danger and darkness lurk around every corner. El, a loner, is set on graduating, even if she doesn't have the benefit of a group of magicians around her or the safety in numbers some of the more privileged students enjoy. But she fears she'll be killed in some unfortunate incident before she can finish her education. When the golden boy in her class irritatingly insists on saving her life and acting the annoying hero, El, with her dark magic--more powerful than any of her classmates realize--fears she might accidentally take him out before she can master her skills. I love the wonderful dark humor and unexpected details so far. Novik also wrote the fantastic Spinning Silver and Uprooted, both of which appear on the Greedy Reading List Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love. 02 The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black The Queen of Nothing is the final book in Black's Folk of the Air trilogy (I mentioned the series in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series). Jude is the exiled Queen of Faerie, scrambling to make a living in the human world by freelancing, carrying out petty jobs of thievery and intimidation. She's furious at King Cardan's betrayal, and she's biding her time until she can exact her revenge. When her twin sister Taryn arrives in the human world, fearing for her life, Jude finds herself drawn back into Elfhame, with its power struggles, backstabbing, and elaborate schemes--including those of her fickle, murderous father figure, Madoc. As always, Black's characters show darkly funny humor and trade biting remarks, and creatures of all types interact, jostle for power, snipe, battle, and fall in love. 03 Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin Serpent & Dove is Shelby Mahurin's first book in her young adult trilogy by the same name (Blood & Honey is the second, with the third, Gods & Monsters, set for publication this summer). Louise is a thief who keeps the company of prostitutes and lawbreakers. She's a witch who has sworn off magic; she fled her powerful mother and coven, but they didn't want to let her go. Now she hides from their power and their desire to use her to further their ends. Reid is a straight-laced young man for whom things are black-and-white, clearly right and wrong. He doesn't break rules, and in fact he works for the Church, hunting down witches for destruction. Things quickly get complicated, and circumstances demand that Lou and Reid get MARRIED. This is all very angsty and dramatic so far, and I love it!

I wished that the book had more fully explored the cycle of prediction and realization that lies at the heart of its premise. In the world of Laura Maylene Walter's just-published young adult novel Body of Stars, the patterns of freckles, moles, and birthmarks on women’s bodies serve to predict their future—their career, the number of children they'll have, important aspects of their family members' lives--everything significant that lies ahead. I had some trouble getting on board with Walter's premise of moles and freckles and birthmarks holding the key to unlocking the future. The characters' peering at and studying each other’s body patterns felt extremely invasive and intrusive, especially when the boys and men felt entitled to examine the young women. (The father-daughter examination tradition at puberty--! And Miles's pushing into his sister's room--which is disturbing enough: privacy, please!--and expecting disrobing and peering to be allowed--! No no no.) The girls seemed mildly disturbed but not as horrified as I was as a reader. I felt on the edge of jumping out of my skin for most of the book. It seemed especially off-putting somehow that Miles (who as a male had no markings) was so very interested in the markings and their meanings. There are a lot of potential triggers here, and Walter explores a society in which victim shaming is common and justice isn't meted out to those in the wrong. It's enraging. The most intriguing aspects of the story for me were related to characters' dreams of a world in which women had no markings, but I wished that the book more fully explored the cycle of prediction and realization that lies at the heart of its premise. Do predicted events bear out specific outcomes just by their existence? How much of the fated events are set in stone in Walter's imagined world? If no markings existed, would futures not be fated? Or would they be destined to occur, but remain unknown until they took place? And isn't centering so many lives around interpreting these marks perpetuating their power--and the women’s being at men's mercy, being showcased and examined and on display and exploited? The education for (some of) the girls following their abductions was wonderfully imagined. I would've liked to spend more time at the school as they learned about themselves and the world around them. But I kept asking myself, what is any of it for if characters cannot change any aspect of their life path? I received a prepublication edition of this book through Penguin Group Dutton and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Body of Stars reminded me in some ways of The Power because of the young women's influence over society, but women ultimately seemed more empowered in that book.

A book I loved, in case you missed it! O’Farrell’s meditations on the precious nature of life felt new, honest, raw, and fascinating. We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death. I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's memoir of pivotal near-death experiences that shaped her life and affected the way she considers her existence. Her recollections include a childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, an encounter with a potentially dangerous man in the vulnerable middle of nowhere, and her struggle to protect her daughter. The seventeen snapshots of O'Farrell's life at different stages highlight the frighteningly fragile nature of life. The construct of tracing near-death experiences to tell the story of her life didn’t feel forced at all, and O’Farrell’s meditations on the precious nature of life felt new, honest, raw, and fascinating. I loved this. O’Farrell’s writing is exacting but lyrical, capturing the nuances of the moments that lead to and make up sudden crises, arising challenges, and the dangers and narrow escapes that shape a life. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? O'Farrell is also the author of other books I've really liked: Hamnet, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Instructions for a Heatwave, and This Must Be the Place, as well as books I haven't yet read: After You'd Gone, The Distance Between Us, The Hand that First Held Mine, and others.

Tough women, secrets and smarts, and sneaky spying! I love a peek at a secret world, and each of these books offers that very thing. Only one title on this list is nonfiction, but I'm reading another one at the moment that's great so far (Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy by Ben Macintyre, who also wrote the excellent book The Spy and the Traitor). I'll report back after I'm finished. A Woman of No Importance is a nonfiction book that also looks wonderful. Because I'm nothing if not greedy, other nonfiction books in this genre on my to-read list that I'm particularly excited about are: Liar Temptress Soldier Spy (civil war) by Karen Abbott, The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone, and Code Name Lise by Larry Loftis. Kate Quinn, the queen of historical fiction about women who are spies, recently recommended these titles that fit the category, only one of which I've read: Shining Through, The Secrets We Kept, Code Name Verity (see below), An Extraordinary Union, Black Roses, The Blue, Spy Princess, Celia Barth, and Invisible Woman. If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the books I listed on the recent Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Brave Women During World War II. I'd love to hear: What are your favorite (fiction or nonfiction) books about tough lady spies? 01 The Unexpected Spy by Tracy Walder This is the only nonfiction book on the list. I love a peek at a secret world, and in The Unexpected Spy, Tracy Walder offers fascinating glimpses of her life as a CIA and an FBI agent, including training details, political machinations, and significant and rankling discrimination. She explores her own glowing pride in doing her job well and protecting others from danger. Her evolution into her present-day self and current profession was satisfying to witness. I really liked this--and would’ve liked it to be twice as long with even more more more detail! St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley provided me with an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. For my full review of this book, see The Unexpected Spy. 02 The Huntress by Kate Quinn This is the first of two Kate Quinn books on my list--and another promising book of hers, The Rose Code, about code breakers, was published this week. With the Nazis an increasing problem for the Soviet Union, Nina Markova joins the Night Witches, an all-female regiment of night bombers. But Nina's resolve and training are tested when she becomes stuck in enemy territory. Quinn's character-driven post-World War II story was wonderful, with compelling and lush detail about tough female pilots; life in the Siberian wild; Boston; antiques and photography; and the patient, persistent, creative detective work carried out by the characters of Ian, Tony, and Nina. You can see events unfolding while the characters involved remain unaware, but watching the pieces shift and click into place is immensely satisfying. I'm in for all of the World War II-set books with tough, brave female protagonists, and especially female pilots, and I loved this book. For my full review, see The Huntress. 03 Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein In Wein's young adult historical fiction novel, it's 1943, and a British spy plane has crashed in Nazi-occupied France. The plane's young pilot and its passenger are best friends, but only one of the girls survives. "Verity," the survivor, is a secret agent who is captured by the Gestapo. Her Nazi interrogators offer her a way out: reveal her mission and confess her crimes, or be put to death--and it won't be fast and painless. Verity writes her extended confession, revealing her past, her friendship with the pilot Maddie, and various secrets she's gathered while being a spy. Is she laying groundwork for her release, or spinning webs more complicated than her captors imagine? This World War II-era story of female pilots and spies is written in two points of view. At first I found the structure of Verity's letters somewhat distracting, but it grew on me. And while the second section isn't a complete surprise, I found it really satisfying. 04 The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah The Nightingale is Kristin Hannah's very popular book set during World War II about a family stretched to its limits in the face of the horrors of Nazi-occupied France. Hannah's books and I don't always (or often) get along. I find myself distracted by small moments that don't seem to follow with the story she's laying out, and I can't dive into the story. But this book and I got along like BFFs. The Nightingale offers moments of bravery, scenes of terror, and acts of pure love. There are some moments I found melodramatic, but I thought Hannah's story was really, really engaging. I felt somewhat manipulated at the end of The Nightingale because of circumstances surrounding the modern-day point of view, but I was okay with it. If you missed this book when it came out, it's one that's worth a slot on your to-read list. 05 Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin This is the first book in Graudin's young adult duology (the second, Blood by Blood, is also great). The premise hooked me, but I loved Graudin's execution of the story even more. In an alternate reality it's 1956, and Hitler and the Axis powers are taking over the world. Yael, a tough young woman who escaped from a concentration camp, has been training as a spy for years, while cultivating her hatred of the Nazis. Her goal: to win a ruthless, exclusive annual motorbike race through Axis-controlled lands. The victor of The Axis Tour is granted an audience with Adolf Hitler at the celebratory Victor's Ball. Yael plans to get close enough to the Fuhrer to kill him. Oh, aaaand Yael has the power to skinshift so that she looks exactly like other people. Buckle up for this one--it's unusual and fast-paced. Graudin also wrote The Walled City. 06 The Alice Network by Kate Quinn In this second book on the list by Kate Quinn, the stories of two women—an imagined World War I spy from the Alice Network (which actually existed) in France, and an American socialite looking for her cousin in 1947—are brought together across the decades. I loved the strong female protagonists and seeing their fire and grit and growth. Both of the more modern-day storylines were wrapped up neatly as with a bow. I would have been in favor of having the romantic element being tied up without the Eve aspect, or having neither of them tied up at all, but the “end of movie”-type closure for both felt too convenient, and even a little dismissive of the complexities of the time and the specific difficulties of the characters' situations. But I was fascinated by the World War I focus and in many cases the spy details’ basis in reality. I wished I’d known the information from the author’s note as I read because of how much of the stories of the women’s lives was pulled from first-person records.

North provides intrigue, an exploration of gender and power roles, tales of unconventional friendship, and enough shoot-outs and danger to make this a feminist Western I couldn't stop reading. In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. It's 1894, and seventeen-year-old Ada is a newlywed, following contentedly the path set out for her as a young married woman in her small town. She assists her mother with her midwifery, loves her younger sisters, and adjusts to life with a mother-in-law. But when time goes by and Ada doesn't conceive a child, she is suspected of witchcraft, of causing trouble and destruction throughout the community, and of wielding vague, threatening, dark power. Her town, her neighbors, and even her husband turn against her. Fearful for her life, she flees to a convent (where she quickly establishes that she is not destined to become a nun), then through an unlikely convent-to-outlaw pipeline, joins up with The Hole in the Wall Gang, a group of outlaws led by a larger-than-life local legend, The Kid. Ada serves as the motley crew's healer, learns to shoot, takes part in various schemes--some ill-fated--and begins to understand that the group's intention is to effect sweeping change by wielding its power for good. But grandiose plans don't always go off as planned, and making any change in a society so entrenched in prejudice and superstition is going to be tricky, if it's possible at all. North provides intrigue, an exploration of gender and power roles, tales of unconventional friendship, and enough shoot-outs and danger to make this a feminist Western I couldn't stop reading. Plus: I love this cover! Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I mentioned Outlawed (along with Firekeeper's Daughter and Body of Stars) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/10/21 Edition. North also wrote America Pacifica and The Life and Death of Sophie Stark.

What I'm Reading Now The books I've got on my nightstand and on my Kindle at the moment: a turn-of-the century story about outlaws, finding identity, eschewing societal fears and superstition, and belonging; a mystery novel about a brave young woman shaped by her Native American heritage; and a young adult book set in an alternate world where women hold the clues to the future but are subsumed into a male-dominated society as tools to be owned and controlled. Clicking on the covers below takes you to the books on Bookshop, where you can buy books online and benefit independent booksellers. I'd love to hear which books you're reading and enjoying these days, bookworms! Greedy readers want to know! 01 Outlawed by Anna North It's 1894, and seventeen-year-old Ada is a newlywed, falling into the path set out for her as a young married woman--with an aim of becoming a mother--in her small town. But when time goes by and she doesn't conceive a child, she is labeled "barren" and suspected of witchcraft, of having negative effects throughout the community, and of wielding vague, threatening, dark power. She flees to a convent, where she quickly establishes that she is not destined to become a nun, then she joins up with The Hole in the Wall Gang, a group of outlaws led by The Kid and with a motley crew of followers, as their healer. Cue the intrigue, exploration of gender and power roles, unconventional friendship, and danger. 02 Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley Teenaged Daunis Fontaine has never fit into her hometown or the Ojibwe reservation. She must stay home from college to care for her ailing mother, which puts on hold her hopes for her future. When she meets Jamie, a handsome young man on her brother's hockey team, he seems like a much-needed bright spot in her life--but Daunis is sure that he's hiding something. And when she witnesses a shocking murder, Daunis finds herself in the middle of an FBI investigation of a drug ring. With her knowledge of traditional Ojibwe medicine and her brave willingness to go undercover, Daunis will unearth dark secrets that could tear apart her community. Boulley's story is soon to be adapted at Netflix for TV with the Obamas' production company, Higher Ground. I received a prepublication version of this book, which will be published March 16, courtesy of Henry Holt and Company and NetGalley. 03 Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter In Body of Stars, debut author Walter imagines a world in which each young woman's body shows patterns of markings (freckles, moles, and birthmarks) that offer clues to not only the girl's future, but to the future of those around her. As each young woman enters her magical "changeling" period in which her permanent markings (which carry more specific predictions than those she's born with) emerge, she is irresistible to others and highly susceptible to attack and abduction. So far I'm reading this with some difficulty, largely because of the male characters' general entitlement and unchecked power (and threat of rape and attack), as well as their obsession with (and their creepy demands to examine) the girls' naked bodies and markings--including those of their own sisters and daughters. This feels disturbingly fetishistic so far. I received a prepublication version of this book, which will be published March 16, courtesy of Dutton Books and NetGalley.

There is so much to unpack here; Evans's story themes are often haunting, always powerful, and wonderfully nuanced. She thought the insistence on victims without wrongdoers was at the base of the whole American problem, the lie that supported all the others. In The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans offers short stories centering around themes of race, relationships, identity, the fallibility of those shaping historical "fact," grief, and loss. She beautifully and powerfully illustrates essential, deep truths by tracing moments in her characters' everyday lives. In "Happily Ever After" the main character faces the possibility of not being able to have a biological child. In a heartbreaking scene, she dresses up to see the doctor, hoping to use this armor of nice clothing to stave off the news she dreads hearing. Tell me what you would tell a white woman, her face said. A white woman with money, her clothes said. Please, her tone said. In Evans's story "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain," Rena, a war correspondent, attends the wedding of a friend made during a long-ago crisis. The bride's suspicion about the nature of their relationship, the groom's reticence to commit, and the reporter's painful personal history all add layers of complication to the situation. In thinking through a tragedy that befell her family at the hands of someone they knew, Rena reflects: All of her adult life people have asked Rena why she goes to such dangerous places, and she has always wanted to ask them where the safe place is. The danger is in chemicals and airports and refugee camps and war zones and regions known for sex tourism. The danger also sometimes took the trash out for them. The danger came over for movie night and bought them a popcorn maker for Christmas. The danger hugged her mother and shook her father’s hand. In "Boys Go to Jupiter," a young woman wears a gifted confederate flag bikini, is careless about her actions, doubles down in order to have something to stand for, and questions who she would be without the conflict, without a fight. In "Alcatraz," characters count on officially changing the erroneous facts of their family's history and pin hopes for reconciliation on a new chapter of the story, but they must face that their messy reality persists. Race and the meanings attached to it threaten to divide their family forever. "Why Won’t Women Just Say What They Want" focuses on an artist and the many people he has wronged (all of whom but his daughter are reduced to generic titles revolving around their experiences together, without their names). The artist makes elaborate apologies which may be a media stunt. Through the artist's gimmicky attempts to try to move on, the story shows the limitations of an apology after harm is done. In "Anything Could Disappear," the main protagonist feels desperation, hoping fo new beginnings and a reinvention of self. Her plan is shifted by the arrival of another person she feels she must care for, at which point she tries on another identity by taking advantage of others’ assumptions. She breaks her own heart by doing the right thing. In the longest story in the book, at approximately 100 pages, "The Office of Historical Corrections," a black student from Washington, DC, finds herself involved in unraveling a complicated historical mystery that extends over generations and involves her closest friendship and shakes the basis of her career. Evans explores what is accepted as truth, as fact, and as history, as well as who has the power to shift that narrative--and at what cost. That my country might always expect me to audition for my life I accepted as fact... It was the winter after the most depressing election of my adult life, a low point for my faith in the polis, and I had started keeping an unofficial tally in my head of how much I trusted each new white person I met. It was a pitiful tally, because I had decided most of them would forgive anyone who harmed me, would worry more about local anti-racism ruining the holiday party season and causing the cheese plate to go to waste then about the lives and sanity of the non-white humans in their midst. The themes here are often haunting, always powerful, and wonderfully nuanced, even when the scenes (the artist's exhibition, the actual on-the-spot printed and posted corrections of "fact," and others) take metaphors to their limits. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Evans is also the author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, which I definitely want to read. I mentioned this book (along with Boy Swallows Universe and Goodnight Beautiful) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/9/21 Edition.

The book introduces some fascinating detail and interesting themes, but the story frequently feels choppy and unfinished. In von Palleske's novel, two young boys share the experience of a tragic accident. When the friends later encounter a set of identical twins with albinism, the life paths of the boys and girls become intertwined as it winds along the shores of Lake Ontario and into gritty Berlin from the 1960s to 1980s. The book started off a little disjointed for me. I found the strengths to be the detailed explorations into society's judgments of and expectations about visible attributes like albinism and false eyes, forays into the precision and artistry of the making of glass ocular prosthetics, middle-aged characters finding love again, and how characters used their unusual physical attributes, rejected by society, to showcase significant artistic gifts. Different characters reckon with aging and physical changes, ailments, the end of life rushing toward them--and regrets about avenues they have pursued or avoided, or lies they have told themselves. I found myself wanting even more about the tough female survivors (Esther and Hilda) of atrocities, their feelings of survivor responsibility, and the pressure to live their lives in certain ways in order to honor those who died in order to not squander their precious lives. The dialogue in Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack is frequently (but not consistently) formal-sounding, often without contractions that naturally occur in speech patterns. The grown men's speech especially felt as though it didn't flow naturally. (And with one notable exception, von Palleske's grown male characters are almost universally and purely weak, shallow, and/or evil, without shades of gray.) Especially after a point about halfway through the book, abrupt scenes and exchanges, short glimpses of dramatic moments (as at the movies), and spoken zingers that ended brief scenes made the pacing often feel choppy and as though the book were a draft rather than a finished work. The story, its tone, and its characters felt uneven. Conversations seem to often not follow, or else to wrap up unnaturally quickly. Important characters move away and aren’t addressed again. Characters’ unusual career paths (ocularist, opera-punk singer) are laid out by others and then, against all odds, fall perfectly into place. The focus on albinism and incest seemed presented in an exploitative or fetishistic way. The author's note mentions that the published book appears almost exactly as she originally wrote it. As there is not a train-of-thought, avant-garde, stream of consciousness or other unusual structure to the text that seems to warrant this, the story seems as though it could have been strengthened by the convention of undergoing drafts, edits, and revisions. I received a prepublication copy courtesy of Dundurn Press and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I mentioned Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack, which will be published March 9, in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/3/21 Edition.

Do you love memoirs like I do? I love digging into the story of someone's life--notable because of chance, circumstance, or choice--and escaping into an eye-opening and fascinating memoir. If you love memoirs, you might also like the books I listed on the Greedy Reading List Six Illuminating Memoirs I've Read This Year (last year). A few other recent-ish memoirs on my to-read list that I'm particularly excited about are: Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig (author of The Midnight Library), Raising a Rare Girl by Heather Lanier, What Doesn't Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness--Lessons from a Body in Revolt by Tessa Miller, Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade and Author of Harriet the Spy by Leslie Brody, and The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande. I'd love to hear: What are your favorite memoirs? 01 Here For It by R. Eric Thomas In Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America, R. Eric Thomas, the creator of Elle's sassy and smart daily column "Eric Reads the News," shares his thoughts, experiences, and reflections about life and the world around us with honesty and humor. In essays that are sometimes heartbreaking, often inspiring, and that frequently made me laugh out loud, Thomas explores his sheltered youth, his growing realizations that he was different than most of the people he knew, his shame and fear about living as his authentic self, and his meandering path toward his current satisfying life circumstances. I listened to this as an audiobook, and I adored hearing Thomas's voice take me through his essays. His voice and delivery are fabulous. Here For It is refreshing and playful yet thoughtful. I loved spending time with the uproariously funny Thomas as he recounts how he's navigated situations large and small in his life. Thomas is also a host of The Moth storytelling podcast in D.C. and Philadelphia--and he certainly knows how to craft a compelling and full story out of a momentous moment. For my full review of this book, see Here For It. 02 Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford Crawford thought the trauma of her assault at St. Paul's boarding school decades earlier was behind her. It had shaped who she was in many senses, but now she was a grown woman with a full life, and she was not regularly reliving the crushing weight of it as a vivid horror any longer. But when evidence of extensive sexual assault and new allegations at St. Paul's School came to light, she added her voice to the throng of the attacked and abused, opening her own long-closed (and hitherto unknown to her) file and seeing for the first time the brutal facts of her own attack, as well as the ensuing, elaborate efforts to keep secret the events surrounding her situation. Crawford's memoir lays bare systemic lies, gross injustices, horrifying abuses of privilege and power, and longstanding patterns of unprosecuted assaults at elite St. Paul's boarding school--as well as the persistent tragic, infuriating, shaming treatment of assault victims. The topic is crushing, but Crawford's writing is wonderful in its honest and unflinching reflections on society, her own experiences, the horrifying power of privilege, and the abhorrent treatment of assault victims. She tries to imagine the points of view of everyone involved, and she treats her young self with empathy. For my full review of this book, see Notes on a Silencing. 03 In Pieces by Sally Field Here's the list's celebrity memoir! I found Sally Field's discussion of her "craft" and how she grew and changed as an actor to be the most compelling aspect of the book--along with the politics of getting roles and how she finally began listening to her inner voice in all aspects of her life. Therapy (and acting, which also served as a sort of therapy) eventually allowed Field to come into her fully realized adult self, and this journey is satisfying to watch after living through the page time of her languishing and struggling for so long. I listened to this as an audiobook, and I loved hearing Field tell her story. I appreciate when a celebrity provides brutal honesty, and I also admit to sometimes becoming impatient with the navel-gazing necessary to create a memoir. Aaaand I realize that this is unfair since I chose to read this person's life story. For my full review of this book, see In Pieces. 04 Blood by Allison Moorer "I'm still trying not to be the daughter of a murderer. I'm still trying to redeem [my parents]. I carry the structure of their bones around my insides...and try to tell the world, '...They were more than that.'" Allison Moorer is a Grammy- and Academy Award-nominated singer-songwriter whose father killed her mother when Allison and her sister were young. A longtime musical storyteller, Moorer examines her parents, her youth, and that pivotal tragedy, considering how it has shaped her into her adult self and how much of her identity is separate from that horrifying event and its endless repercussions. There's a lot of pain here. But Blood doesn't read as though Moorer is flogging her significant sorrow and anger or highlighting dramatic events for memoir or record sales. I felt like I was following her on her honest, zigzagging, messy journey toward gaining more of an understanding of the people her parents were and the forces that shaped their lives (and their daughters' lives)--as though I was witnessing her step-by-step movement toward something that more closely resembles peace. The foreword was written by Allison's sister, singer and songwriter Shelby Lynne. Regarding their talking through their past together, Moorer says: "So many memories we share and purposely keep well-oiled. We keep them alive even if they hurt us and suck up all the air in the room. They are all we have of our folks and the family we were." For my full review of this book, please see Blood. 05 Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come by Jessica Pan Jessica Pan was an introvert out of a job. Her closest friends had moved away, and she found herself lonely, living in another country, and feeling too reliant on her husband for her entire social life. Pan decided to deliberately put herself into extremely uncomfortable social situations for a year, and she fully commits. She does improv, approaches strangers on the Tube, goes on friend dates, attends networking events, takes a vacation alone (to a destination she doesn't learn until she's at the airport), and more. She regrets her one-year plan almost instantly but feels compelled to continue her terrifying exercises. Her interviews and experiences with others who mentor her journey in different ways could have felt disruptive or jarring but didn't; they added a layer to her story that I found interesting and often revelatory. Pan is wonderfully honest, appealingly thoughtful, and often so so funny. I was so happy spending time in her point of view throughout this book. I loved it and I'd read another book by her in a second. For my full review of this book, please see Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come. 06 Wild Life by Keena Roberts Keena Roberts grew up splitting her time between a primate research camp in Botswana, where she felt at home, and an elite Philadelphia girls' school, where she did not. Wild Life's subtitle, Dispatches from a Childhood of Baboons and Button-Downs, felt whimsical and light. But Roberts's memoir doesn't merely explore her culture shock, as interesting as that is. She reflects upon her identity in a raw and genuine way that I found gripping. Her disparate life experiences ultimately led her to think deeply about her place in the world, her responsibility to humans and animals, and how she might better the lives of others. This memoir was more than I'd hoped for. I love a peek at wildlife and living in the wild, and I adored reading Roberts's account of her journey, from acting in a supporting role for her parents' research to discovering her own challenging, meaningful, and important career and calling. For my full review of this book, please see Wild Life.

Each life Nora tries on changes her in some way, whether by erasing her regrets about a path not taken, showing her that she's capable of bravery and discovery or commitment, or by emphasizing that the flip side of joy in any life will always be sadness. Humans are fundamentally limited, generalising creatures, living on auto-pilot, who straighten out curved streets in their minds, which explains why they get lost all the time. Nora Seed feels like she can't go on. Life is too much, there's no hope for anything better, and her future contains nothing more for her. Her despair leads her to try to end her life. But she finds herself transported to an in-between state that is not life and not death, in the form of a library that exists outside of time and holds shelves full of the "books" of all of her possible lives, from that frozen moment (midnight) forward. Each possibility of a present and future is built upon different combinations of decisions Nora could have made in her life in the past. Some lives are notable, others comfortable, and still others are full of pain. "The thing you have to remember is that this is an opportunity and it is rare and we can undo any mistake we made, live any life we want. Any life. Dream big... You can be anything you want to be. Because in one life, you are." A trusted figure from her childhood serves as her guide to the library, advising her to review her Book of Regrets and plunge into alternate lives to see if a different set of circumstances might fit--and might save Nora from ending it all. There's a lot to unpack from within Haig's fascinating premise. He explores shifting realities and asks how much of a person's happiness and life course is determined by circumstance, by choice, and by chance--as well as how much of what makes someone who they are is inherent and how much is shaped by the web of decisions that make up a life. Maybe there was no perfect life for her, but somewhere, surely, there was a life worth living. Nora dips in and out of different lives, trying on careers, love lives, travel adventures, fame and fortune, and a settled family life. But not having experienced and remembered each moment that led to her various life options--which she joins in medias res-- keeps Nora at a distance from them. Her mind begins to fill in gaps to help her exist in that life, or to help her find her way around a new town, or to understand how she ended up where she finds herself, yet she's altogether missed her own decision-making, private jokes, clarifying moments, sadness, and joys that made her that person in that life with those people on that path. She enters each journey in progress, leaping into an existence without having built any of it, and she revels in the possibilities while also feeling empty because she didn't lay the foundation. “The trouble was that eventually Nora began to lose any sense of who she was. Like a whispered word passed around from ear to ear, even her name began to sound like just a noise, signifying nothing.” Yet each life Nora tries on changes her in some way, whether by erasing her regrets about a path not taken, showing her that she's capable of bravery and discovery or commitment, or by emphasizing the ups and downs of any life--in one life she might have an exciting career, but she may have devastatingly lost a loved one. She may find a path in a cozy life, but without a deep romantic love. Her rock-star self may seem impressive, but that Nora also seems despondent. Nora begins to understand that none of these situations is perfect, and that the flip side of joy for anyone in any life will always be sadness. It may very well feel like oversimplifying for those familiar with mental illness to watch the character of Nora, who in her original life is experiencing crushing emotional turmoil, be able to "learn" herself out of despair. But I was taken by her journey of discovery leading to the realization that sad times make joyful moments all the sweeter. I also particularly enjoyed Haig's exploration into the impacts Nora had on those around her--who was alive and thriving in certain life threads because of Nora's care or attention, and who was missing from another life thread, seemingly because she hadn't taken time with them. No pressure, Nora, but everyone is depending on you! Haig presents a captivating hook, and I enjoyed his storytelling. The setup keeps Nora at a distance from her possible lives and thereby keeps the reader at a distance from Nora. This meant that I didn't feel emotionally invested in Nora's story although I appreciated the implications of her experiences and was very interested in what would happen. The ending isn't unexpected, but it does feel hard-fought and satisfying. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Haig is also the author of How to Stop Time, his memoir Reasons to Stay Alive, and other books. I read The Midnight Library at the same time my mom did; as part of an online book club for March; and in preparation for my in-person book club. Trifecta! If you like books that play with time and alternate realities, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading List Six Riveting Time-Travel Escapes. I mentioned this book (along with Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack and The Arsonists' City) in Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/3/21 Edition.

What I'm Reading Now Here's what I've got going at the moment: a dark, intriguing story of interconnectedness between unusual characters; a novel about a family straddling cultures and in which family members to find their way back to each other by traveling around the world; and a popular book by Matt Haig that explores shifting realities and asks how much of a person is determined by circumstance, by choice, and by chance. Remember, clicking on the covers below takes you to the books on Bookshop, where you can buy books online and benefit independent booksellers. I'd love to hear which books you're reading and enjoying these days, bookworms! Greedy readers want to know! 01 Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack by Heidi von Palleske In von Palleske's modern gothic novel, two young boys share the experience of a tragic accident. Then they encounter a set of twins and the life paths of the boys and girls become intertwined, shaped by circumstance and by fate. Set on the shores of Lake Ontario and in gritty Berlin from the 1960s to 1980s, the story from von Palleske sets her eclectic characters on a course of discovery, mistakes, love, forgiveness. This book will be published March 9, 2021. I received a prepublication copy of this book courtesy of Dundurn Press and NetGalley. 02 The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan A rich family story, a personal look at the legacy of war in the Middle East, and an indelible rendering of how we hold on to the people and places we call home. In the novel The Arsonists' City, Hala Alyan presents a family in which a Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three first-generation American children with an ancestral home in Beirut come to terms with deep loss. They return to Beirut as a touchstone and to attempt to pull together again. With plenty of secrets, messy interpersonal family interactions, love, and loss--and all of this against a background of Beirut, a city shaped by and "smoldering with the legacy of war." I received a prepublication copy of this book, which will be out March 9, 2021, courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley. 03 The Midnight Library by Matt Haig Nora Seed feels like she can't go on. Life is too much, there's no hope for anything better, and her future contains nothing but disappointment. Her despair leads her to try to end her life. She finds herself transported to an in-between state that is not life and not death, in the form of a library that exists outside of time and holds shelves full of the "books" of all of her possible life paths. A trusted figure from her childhood serves as her guide to the library, advising her to review her Book of Regrets and plunge into alternate lives to see if a different set of circumstances might fit--and might save Nora from ending it all. The particulars of each future she might drop into are determined by the different combinations of decisions Nora could have made in her life. Some are notable, others comfortable, and still others are full of destruction and pain. There's a lot to unpack from Haig's (also the author of How to Stop Time and others) fascinating premise. I'm reading this along with my mom, as part of an online book club for March, and for my in-person book club. Trifecta! If you like books that play with time and alternate realities, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading List Six Riveting Time-Travel Escapes.

Whitaker's story builds into a tale of heartbreak and desperate hopes for redemption that folds back upon itself with unexpected turns and considerable depth. Walk is the chief of police in the small coastal California town where he grew up. Decades earlier his account of a terrible event sent his best friend Vincent to prison. Vincent has tried to make his own suffering as great as possible behind bars by eschewing distraction and comfort, and now he's about to be released. Duchess is a thirteen-year-old girl trying to keep her family together. Her mother Star is old friends with Walk and Vincent, and when Vincent reappears, the tenuous peace and calm Duchess and her steady family friend Walk have been able to secure for her household are disrupted. Walk and Duchess are an unlikely pair, a milquetoast cop and a defiant young teen. But both of the longtime family friends are used to disappointment and both are used to relying on themselves. Can they somehow prevent Vincent and Star from destroying themselves and everyone who cares about them, or are Walk and Duchess inadvertently adding to the collapse? I felt as though Duchess's repetition of "I'm an outlaw" and her wearing of a bow in her hair made her feel far younger than her thirteen years. I could imagine that each of these details, which are repeated, could be part of an understandable, thwarted maturity resulting from her difficult circumstances, although I'm not clear about whether or not that was the intention. She is suspicious and jaded in most ways, with her love for her brother her only clear weakness. Whew, this book! It started a little slowly for me, then built into a tale of heartbreak and desperate hopes for redemption that folded back upon itself with unexpected turns and considerable depth. There are mysterious forces and machinations, many of which remain unclear to the reader until late in the book, when major unraveling occurs. Whitaker offers up the story's compounding tragedies in often-beautiful language. The tone frequently reminded me somewhat of that of John Hart's books. The secondary character of Thomas Noble was my favorite in the book. "Her relationship with Thomas Noble had blossomed into the kind of one-sided friendship where he confided in her and she used his secrets against him, without mercy." I loved him with Duchess. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I received a prepublication copy of this book, scheduled for publication today, March 2, courtesy of Henry Holt & Co. and NetGalley. I mentioned this book (along with The Arctic Fury and the new release Machinehood) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/24/21 Edition.

Space! Robots! Artificial intelligence! Divya has crafted strong female main protagonists who navigate the sometimes dark, always complicated pressures of life in 2095--as they try to save the world. In her debut novel, Divya sets the scene in the world of 2095. Humanity around the world is reliant on homemade and commercially manufactured pills--for health, for work focus, for managing bots, for healing, for sleep, and for transitioning between all of the above. The economy runs on robots, partially augmented humans, and humans desperately trying to compete with artificial intelligence and survive in the gig economy. Welga Ramirez is an elite bodyguard who is former special forces, and she's on the verge of retirement. Like almost everyone, Welga allows constant live feeds of her activity for anyone who's interested in seeing what she's doing. She manages to keep her virtual tip jar full, and her biggest challenge lately has been shifting her angle or slightly manipulating a situation during her bodyguard jobs in order to maximize tips. Then the unthinkable happens: her team's client is murdered. Violent crimes really don't happen anymore, and society is thrown into a tailspin. A new terrorist group, The Machinehood, takes responsibility. They're attacking and killing major pill funders, and they threaten more widespread destruction if society doesn't immediately stop using pills as the basis for everyday tasks and as the foundation for the worldwide economy and offer greater rights for humans enhanced with artificial intelligence. In the midst of a global panic, Welga is drawn back into intelligence work in order to identify and fight this new enemy--an enemy that may turn out to be a new incarnation of an old nemesis. Space! Robots! Artificial intelligence! I wished for more page time spent on everyday tasks and activities (cooking, shifting household modules, travel, and communicating), which were all carried out in Jetsons-level, fascinating, futuristic ways. But Divya is too busy crafting strong female main protagonists (complete with working mother guilt, which exists in the future too) as they: navigate ethical considerations such as pressures on workers and workload expectations; consider modifications to the body to enable faster or more strenuous work; manage the implications of a backlash against artificial enhancements; and face society's inability to extricate itself and the worldwide economy from a reliance on pills. There are mysterious elements at play. Going off world is presented as a possible solution (for those with means) and a potential escape from the Earth's complications. The management of many large-scale issues and their side effects are shown in shades of gray rather than black-and-white, including the meaning and value of personhood; the definitions of health, autonomy, and freedom; sometimes-necessary compromises; and the promise for the future of the world. Toward the end of the book there's significant summary, and as events move along during the late phase of the story, we see abrupt changes and shifts in thinking and plans. This works for the plot and resolutions—and none of it happens without realistic complications—but it also felt a little jarring. Any Bossy thoughts about this book? Machinehood is out tomorrow! Are you going to read this one? Have you read it? I received a prepublication copy of this book courtesy of Gallery Books and NetGalley. I mentioned this book (along with We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker and The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/24/21 Edition.

01 The Conquerer’s Saga series by Kiersten White White's And I Darken, the first book in her Conquerer's Saga series, has a cover that to me evokes fantasy, but this series is actually captivating historical fiction. I loved the Ottoman Empire setting, the strong female main protagonist, and the complications and sometimes burdens of loyalty, love, and and conflicting allegiances. The next books in Kiersten White's trilogy are Now I Rise and Bright We Burn. In Now I Rise, Lada is tough as nails but faulted, and we see her forge her identity more fully through every ruthless or merciful move she makes, buoyed by the loyalty of her dedicated followers. Bright We Burn is brutal, unrelenting, and fierce. I thought this final book in the trilogy was wonderful. Resolutions were graceful and fitting without being too easy. I gave each of these books four stars. 02 His Fair Assassin series by Robin LaFevers Grave Mercy is the first in LaFevers's five-book His Fair Assassin series. Ismae escapes an arranged marriage, arrives at a convent, and is ultimately trained as an assassin and must eliminate her victim within the high court of Brittany. I loved this book and was so engrossed, I could have read it in one fell swoop--except for the fact that it's 500+ pages. It's a little dark, consistently fascinating, sometimes funny, and very satisfying. This blend of historical fiction, fantasy, and paranormal continues with LaFevers's Dark Triumph, Mortal Heart, Courting Darkness, and Igniting Darkness. In Dark Triumph, the book's point of view traces events concurrent with those in the first book, so the reader can see how it all overlaps. I was absolutely hooked. Mortal Heart offers a melding of tidier-than-likely resolutions and dramatic romantic situations that I had no argument with--I found it all fabulously satisfying. I gave each of the first four books in LaFevers's His Fair Assassin series either three and a half (Mortal Heart) or four stars (Grave Mercy and Dark Triumph), and I just recently realized that I initially thought this was a trilogy and haven't finished this series, so I'm eager to read the last two. 03 The Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo I loooove me some Leigh Bardugo. Shadow and Bone is my favorite among multiple great Bardugo series, and it's also the title of the first book in Bardugo's trilogy. In book one, Alina, a refugee, uncovers an unlikely depth of powers with the ability to destroy or to heal. She finds that she may be the only hope to save her war-torn country. I love Bardugo's pacing, dialogue, twists and turns, character development, all of it, and I gave this book five stars. In the second book of the series, Siege and Storm, The Darkness emerges with a destructive and dangerous plan to crush everything Alina has ever known and loved. She is forced to reckon with the potential end to her land, her people, her love--and even her own powers. Bardugo doesn't take the easy way out with the plot, and the dialogue here is funny and smart. She builds on complicating elements, and character development is satisfying but the interpersonal relations are believably tricky at times. I gave it four stars. In Ruin and Rising, The Darkness is ruling Ravka, and the light and power meant to weaken him seem far away, holding little hope. I adored this final installment in the trilogy and gave it five stars. It's dark and darkly funny, with twists, turns, and satisfying relationship growth. 04 The Folk of the Air series by Holly Black The Folk of the Air is a young adult fantasy trilogy from Holly Black. The Cruel Prince is the first book, The Wicked King is the second, and the final book, The Queen of Nothing, is currently in "just started" position on my bedside table. In The Cruel Prince, Jude and her sister are sent to live with the enemy in the High Court of Faerie after their parents are brutally murdered. I was hooked from the first scene. There was some story meandering and I would have liked to see more character development for Taryn, but I enjoyed the forays back and forth from the human world to the faerie, the various things-aren’t-what-they-seem plot elements, and how things weren’t black-and-white. In The Wicked King, surprising revelations, shifting alliances, opaque political machinations, and enmity between main characters all complicate things for Jude. I loved the intrigue, clever plotting, complicated loyalties and desires, creatures of all kinds, plus: a twist...and double twist! And a cross...and double-cross! The final book in the series, The Queen of Nothing, catches up with Jude, who has been exiled. A dormant curse and dark power is unleashed, threatening humanity. Jude must determine whether her power to rule or the needs of her people will win out in her loyalties, while also facing confusing and maddening feelings for her former nemesis. 05 The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner Oh, these books! In The Thief, we're introduced to the irresistible character of Gen. He's plucked from the royal prison to help the king's magus find an ancient treasure. Things aren’t exactly what they seem in this first installment of the intriguingly twisty, turny series. The Thief is a book that frankly would stand alone beautifully, but instead, luckily for us, it begins Turner's six-book series, which offers wonderfully flawed characters, plot twists and revelations, great banter, and endings you may not predict. The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, A Conspiracy of Kings (this was possibly my favorite among favorites), Thick As Thieves, and Return of the Thief are the other books in the series. These six books were published over a period of almost twenty-five years, and the story trail traces the charismatic Gen through what are consistently and, for me, wonderfully unexpected developments related to plot, character arc, point of view, morality, origin stories, conflict, despair, and love. If you haven't read this series yet, consider me envious. I just adored it and constantly recommend it. 06 The Queen of the Tearling series by Erika Johansen Exiled Princess Kelsea is trying to reclaim the crown her mother squandered away, while also fighting off the evil powers of The Red Queen in Mortmesne and securing safety for her people in their land, The Tearling. Queen of the Tearling traces the backstories of key characters and offers varied points of view. Queen of the Tearling was Johansen's debut novel. The Invasion of the Tearling offers more history of the Crossing, which led people to settle in The Tearling. In The Fate of the Tearling, the final book in the trilogy, Johansen offers peeks at her characters' pasts as well as the forces that shaped the Tearling, and she plays with time and reality to create an ending to the trilogy that I didn't anticipate. In Beneath the Keep, the trilogy's prequel, the kingdom's evils are intensely detailed and extensively explored; this motivates characters to seek change, but also made the book a little difficult for me to read. I reviewed The Fate of the Tearling here, and Beneath the Keep, the trilogy's prequel, here. Have you read any or all of these magical young adult mysteries related to royalty? It's tough for me to fall in love with the first book in a series and then twiddle my thumbs waiting for the next installment. But each of these series are complete, so if you haven't read them yet, you don't have to wait years for a sequel! Another series that would fit perfectly within this list is the wonderful Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden. I reviewed the first book, The Bear and the Nightingale, here, and I mentioned the series, which is set in Russia and has a dark fairy-tale tone, in the Greedy Reading List Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love. What other series that have to do with court, queens, and royalty would you include on this list? I've got enough other favorites in this vein that I could probably make a second list sometime. Happy reading, bookworms!

Waxman offers a nice dose of feminism, realistically fraught mother-daughter interactions, and laugh-out-loud funny moments. Jessica is a single, middle-aged mom, a successful lawyer, and a helpful mentor to the younger women at her California firm. Emily is her teenaged daughter who is unsure what she wants for her future (and is generally irritated by her mother and her fervent interest in Emily's plans). When mother and daughter head out for a weeklong visit of east coast colleges with a touring company, Jessica's hoping for some quality time with Emily, like they enjoyed in the days before everything she did seemed to set Emily off. Emily's just trying to escape the drama and pressure of her private school in Los Angeles, and she's not at all convinced that college is in the cards for her anyway. The pair bond over an awkward dinner with Jessica's flirtatious college boyfriend; run-ins with an insufferable mother-daughter pair from home; an interrogation from Jessica's father (Emily's grandfather), who demands details of Emily's career plans; reconnecting with dear old family friends; a visit from the authorities; and moments of levity with delightful, unexpected new friends. Waxman offers a nice dose of feminism, realistically fraught mother-daughter interactions, and laugh-out-loud funny moments. Emily is realistically questioning and searching, yet she knows herself well enough to establish the broad strokes of what she does and doesn't want for her life. I listened to this as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Waxman is also the author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. I wanted to love that book more--there was so much love for books, and the main protagonist had a gloriously book-focused life!--but I found myself distracted by what felt like too many silly, slapstick moments or details that didn't seem to fit for me. I mentioned I Was Told It Would Get Easier (along with The Fate of the Tearling and The Girl from Widow Hills) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/17/21 Edition.

01 Machinehood by S.B. Divya In her debut novel, Divya offers a society set in 2095. Humanity is reliant on homemade and commercially manufactured pills--for health, for work focus, for managing bots, for healing, for sleep, and for transitioning between all of the above. Using pills is the only way humans can compete with artificial intelligence in the gig economy. Welga Ramirez is an elite bodyguard, former special forces, and on the verge of retirement. Like everyone, Welga has constant feeds allowing anyone who's interested to see what she's doing. She keeps her virtual tip jar up, and her biggest challenge lately has been shifting her angle or slightly manipulating a situation during her bodyguard jobs in order to maximize tips. Then the unthinkable happens: her team's client is murdered. Violent crimes really don't happen anymore, and society is thrown into a tailspin. A new terrorist group, The Machinehood, takes responsibility. They're attacking and killing major pill funders, and they threaten more widespread destruction if society doesn't immediately stop using pills as the basis for everyday tasks and as the foundation for the worldwide economy. In the midst of a global panic, Welga is drawn back into intelligence work in order to identify and fight this new enemy--an enemy that may turn out to be a new incarnation of an old nemesis. This book will be published March 2, 2021. I received a prepublication copy of this book courtesy of Gallery Books and NetGalley. 02 We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker Walk is the chief of police in the small coastal California town where he grew up. He made the heartbreaking decision decades earlier to tell the truth and send his best friend Vincent to prison, and now Vincent is about to be released. Duchess is a thirteen-year-old girl trying to keep her family together. Her mother Star is old friends with Walk and Vincent, and when Vincent reappears, he disrupts the tenuous peace and calm that Duchess and her steady family friend Walk have been able to secure. Can Walk and Duchess--an unlikely pair on the surface, but both used to disappointment and relying on themselves--somehow prevent Vincent and Star from destroying themselves and everyone and everything around them? I received a prepublication copy of this book, scheduled for publication March 2, 2021, courtesy of Henry Holt & Co. and NetGalley. 03 The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister It's 1853, and longtime California trail guide Virginia Reeve is offered the opportunity to take charge of an unlikely expedition. A benefactor wants her to lead a team of twelve women into the Arctic to locate the missing Franklin Expedition. Each of the women brings unique skills and strengths to the team, but each also holds secrets of her own. In timelines alternating between the expedition and the events of a year and a half afterward, Macallister pieces together what really happened to the brave, motley crew of women out on the wild, dangerous ice. If you like books with wintry settings, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading List Six Books with Cold, Wintry Settings to Read by the Fire. What are you reading these days? This mix is working well for me: science fiction with themes about society's reliance on attention and outside stimulation; a gritty modern-day, small-town mystery with beautifully imperfect characters bringing it all to life; and a woman-powered historical fiction story of an expedition to the coldest of destinations, the Arctic. Which books are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms?

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. When they say: The girl from Widow Hills, remember? What they were reaching back for weren’t your memories—they were their own. That girl is frozen in time, with her beginning, middle, and end: victim, endurance, triumph. It was a good story. A good feeling. A good ending. Fade to black. As if, when the daily news moved on, and the articles ended, and the conversations turned, it was all over. As if it weren’t just beginning. Arden Maynor 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. "The girl from Widow Hills" was instantly famous and would be forever. Anniversaries of the event, her mother's book about the experience, and a community that wouldn't allow her to forget--all of these drove Arden to move and then move again, eventually changing her name to Olivia, leaving behind her mother--who was slowly destroyed by the fame and relentless attention--and led Olivia to speak of the experience to no one in an attempt to become someone without the yoke of that sensational story. Now Olivia is sleepwalking again, and she can't be entirely sure what she does in the night. 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 and odd. 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. She takes a famous fictional rescue story and imagines the characters' turmoil and desperately cobbled-together coping mechanisms, crafting a fascinating look at the depths beneath. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? My book club heard Miranda talk about this book at a virtual library foundation event in the fall, and she hooked us on the story. She's also the author of All the Missing Girls, which I thought was interesting in its structure (it begins in the present day after a series of disturbing events and works backward in time chapter by chapter), as well as The Perfect Stranger and The Last House Guest. I mentioned this book (along with The Fate of the Tearling and I Was Told It Would Get Easier) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/17/21 Edition.

The emotions and drives of the story feel real, but the tone is darkly playful. I loved spending time with main protagonist Eli as he navigated tough situations and emerged with hope. There's a secret panel in the back of the wardrobe at Eli's house. Behind the panel is a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel is a room. In the room is a red telephone, and the male voice on the line gives Eli advice. Who is the man? Can he be trusted? Is any of this even real? Eli Bell is a young man in a tough spot. His father's out of the picture, his mother's in jail, his stepfather is gone, and his best friend and most solid source of advice is a convicted felon and legendary prison escapee, Slim. Eli's beloved older brother August is brilliant, but he never speaks. Things are complicated. Eli lives in a bleak, distant suburb of Brisbane, Australia. He wants to grow up and become a journalist, but for now his main goal is trying not to attract too much attention or bring any trouble down on himself or his brother. Tytus Broz, a powerful drug dealer (an association with whom left Eli's family in shambles), is successfully posing as an inspiring philanthropist. On the surface, he's an inventor who gives back to the community. In reality, he employs the foulest, most cruel minion to help him destroy anyone threatening his bad business, his profits, or his control. The injustice of this leaves Eli in a murderous rage. Eli is a good young fellow who is growing more savvy, is increasingly able to see shades of gray, and who is singularly focused on the long game in order to save his family, preserve his dreams, and achieve justice. If he can just manage his mother's tendency to fall in with the wrong man; get the reporter Caitlyn Spies to realize that he exists; figure out what his vivid, recurring dreams and his brother August's premonitions might mean; and determine whose voice is on the other end of that damn red phone, things just might turn out all right. He can't face any other possibility. In many ways, Boy Swallows Universe defies categorization. Its circumstances are often grim and should feel hopeless, the story's destruction and violence often feels unending, and Eli's luck continues to plunge. Yet Eli is an optimistic, practical adolescent boy who is bent on making his way, finding the courage to talk to the girl of his dreams, and sorting through the elements of magical realism Dalton places in his path. The emotions and drives of the story feel real, but the tone is darkly playful. Some of Eli's grand plans (going to see his mom) were fully implausible, with questionable, fleeting benefits that felt sure to end badly, and some other plot points were similarly unlikely, but I was happily willing to suspend my disbelief. Trent's debut novel sifts through everyday brutality, corruption, and the general neglect of people and possessions and reveals imperfect goodness and hope. Boy Swallows Universe has many larger-than-life characters, especially its villains. Despite the desperate behaviors of the adults in Eli's life (and the terrible consequences he suffers because of them), he emerges as a fantastic, oddball, singularly heroic character I loved spending time with. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Dalton is also the author of All Our Shimmering Skies and By Sea & Stars: The Story of the First Fleet, a nonfiction book about the founding of Australia. I mentioned Boy Swallows Universe (along with A Burning and The Office of Historical Corrections) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/9/21 Edition.

01 The Skylark's Secret by Fiona Valpy The Skylark's Secret has a dual timeline; the story is set in rural Scotland during World War II and decades later in the same village. Valpy's detailed setting and character development are wonderful, and I was equally invested in and engaged by both of the interconnected timelines. There's a low-key mystery Lexie is set on unraveling (key players are keeping secrets about events from decades past), and she's making initially hesitant attempts to reclaim love, the joy of music, independence, community, and general fulfillment. Not everything turns out happily in both timelines, but Valpy leaves the reader with a reassuringly satisfying ending. Different types of women's courage are shown in the World War II-era story as well as the more modern part of the tale. I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK in exchange for an honest review. For my full review of The Skylark's Secret, please click here. 02 The Light After the War by Anita Abriel Author Abriel has said that this story is so fully inspired by her grandmother's story that she didn't even change the main characters' names. Abriel's grandmother Vera lived with the author's family when Abriel was growing up, and she was immersed in her grandmother's tales of life in Caracas, and Edith, and heartbreak, and hope. Abriel offers a vivid account of the fear and dread—intermixed with sparks of hope—that sustained Vera and Edith during the war; their wonderfully brave, practical, creative routes to survival as single young women along with jarring adjustments to post-war floods of food, fashion, and joy; the evolutions of their careers; and each of their attempts to find a second chapter of love. Vera and Edith are such a complementary partnership, and I loved spending time with these strong young women. They're living through wartime challenges but weren't wartime spies or deeply involved in war efforts. I was taken by how remarkable the story was of the women's lives during this time of turmoil. I received an advance copy of this book through Atria Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Click here for my full review of The Light After the War. 03 The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman The world is unraveling on the cusp of World War II, and three strong women will be tested beyond anything they imagined before the end of the war. We've got the strong, gruff Hanni with a heart of gold; young Ettie, who is idealistic, tough as nails, and capable of deep love; and a heartbreakingly loyal and satisfyingly powerful golem, Ava. This was a beautiful book. The golem and heron and other ethereal elements could have been distracting, but they worked to add a dreamlike layer--and intriguing depth--to Hoffman's unusual World War II-set story. I was most struck by the character-driven World War II sections, which were haunting and lovely. Hoffman made me feel anchored to the characters so that the emotions, concerns, and life-and-death decisions the women grappled with in 1941 felt immediate and relevant. For my full review of this book, please see The World That We Knew. 04 Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave After the war of course it will be like the start of spring, which is always so brilliantly sudden. The leaves will burst back onto the trees and close the gaps between the branches and we shall be startled--shan't we?--as we are startled at the end of every winter. We shall think: oh, I had quite forgotten.... In Everyone Brave Is Forgiven, Cleave tells the story of Mary, a young British socialite who shocks her family by volunteering for the war effort. She teaches the children evacuated from London, children society has rejected because of race, impairment, or other perceived faults. Tom is Mary's employer, and he's upset when his best friend Alastair enlists. The two men and Mary end up in a heartbreaking wartime love triangle. Set during the bleak years of 1939-1942 in London and on the strategic island of Malta, Everyone Brave Is Forgiven illustrates how everyday triumphs, failures, and concerns come together to shape lives, even during a momentous sequence of surrounding events such as World War II. The language and pacing is so lovely, the World War II settings so exquisitely laid out, and the dialogue so darkly funny, I loved this! 05 Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum Most of us are drawn to this time period thinking it was a war of absolute good versus absolute evil—qualities rarely found in their purest form—and that’s true. But don’t forget that history isn’t just a study in black and white. Human behavior is comprised of ulterior motives, of gray shades. I was fascinated by the two points of view (mother and daughter) and the two time periods (World War II and the late 1990s) that Blum explores in Those Who Save Us. Blum's characters are far from perfect and are not all blameless and noble. In terms of illustrating women's bravery during the war, this book is unlike the others on this list. Anna is haunted by her wartime experiences and compromises, and she is fearful of Trudy's potential reaction to the heartbreaking truths of her mother's past. I was riveted by Those Who Save Us (and I love the multiple potential implications of the book's title). I had trouble with the convenience of the ending, but the story was so darn good, the weight of the ending mattered less to me than it otherwise might have. 06 The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes The multiple points of view and jumps backward in time felt choppy for a while, then Moyes laid the groundwork for a set of lives that evolve dramatically and intriguingly over the course of an ocean voyage. Within the microcosm of a ship full of hundreds of women--and even more naval officers at the end of their wartime duty--Moyes captures end-of-war excitement and reflection; the women's limited options/roles/escapes from past mistakes; as well as male power; lack of free will for women; the tensions of the young men exhilarated to be alive; and the hesitant, excited, young brides living together in close quarters for weeks. There is some teasing manipulation that made me impatient, but I was fascinated by the factual basis for the story: the transport of over 600 brides from Australia to England in 1946, after World War II, to be reunified with their wartime husbands. Moyes's grandmother mentioned her own voyage on the HMS Victorious, which inspired the author's framework for the book. I'd like to read more about the facts of that time and of voyages like this. What are some of your favorite books about brave women during World War II? Other titles I considered listing here were the five-star read All the Light We Cannot See; The Women in the Castle, which includes a complicated element of bravery; and the fantastic book for young readers, The War That Saved My Life, as well as its wonderful sequel, The War I Finally Won. What others might you include on this list? I have a future list in mind focusing on stories about women who were wartime spies, so I've saved back a few World War II books about brave women in the thick of wartime intrigue and danger for that post. For great historical fiction of all types, you might like to check out Six Historical Fiction Books I Loved in the Past Year and Six Historical Fiction Books I Loved This Year. Happy reading, bookworms!

Johansen offers peeks at her characters' pasts as well as the forces that shaped the Tearling, and she plays with time and reality to create an ending to the trilogy that I didn't anticipate. The Fate of the Tearling is the final book in Erika Johansen's Queen of the Tearling trilogy. The first two are The Queen of the Tearling and The Invasion of the Tearling, and there's a recently published prequel, Beneath the Keep. In current-day Tearling society there's oppressive wretchedness (human trafficking, child sex slaves, and a literal underground warren of nefarious activity, “the Crèche”). In the timeline set farthest in the past, we see a faulted but idealistic society built around William Tear’s vision that everyone is special in their own way but equal in importance. But while William Tear inspired a (fragile) cult of personality, his heir and son Jonathan is no politician--he's not a gifted public speaker, more of an introvert, thinker, and philosopher who doesn't care to endear himself to the public. Visions and magically determined predictions guide decision-making for both leaders and their guides. Meanwhile the Orphan, a grave-robbing monster making zombies of children, lurks in the night, threatening the stability of the hard-fought status quo of the Tearling and placing every citizen's safety in danger. I very much enjoyed harking back to the childhoods of the Fetch, Row Finn, and Jonathan Tear to better understand their motivations and the experiences that shaped them. The elaborate escape plans and rescue plots in the book were one of my favorite elements. I also loved seeing two strong, clever, diametrically opposed queens savvily playing with the lines of trust and manipulation. The nemeses come to understand each other more deeply in an unlikely situation, and it was an evolution I found fascinating. “Empathy. Carlin always said it was the great value of fiction, to put us inside the minds of strangers.” Christianity is presented as a swift, sweeping, destructive force in the Town without offering any redemption or morality to its followers, who are essentially presented as simple-minded. I was frustrated by the determinedly held secrets of the Crossing that prevented younger generations from learning helpful lessons from history and understanding their ancestors' mistakes and successes. Johansen plays with timelines and offers a shifting reality at the end that I didn't at all anticipate. I have mixed emotions about this ending for the story--it felt a little anticlimactic in its "undoing" of prior events and was an enormous departure from the tone and feel of the rest of Johansen's trilogy. I already miss my favorite characters from the series. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I mentioned this book in my review for the trilogy's prequel, Beneath the Keep. It turned out to be really helpful for me to read this ending to the trilogy before delving into the prequel because I'd read the others in the series a while ago. The Fate of the Tearling also appeared (along with The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda and I Was Told It Would Get Easier by Abbi Waxman) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/17/21 Edition.

01 The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda Arden Maynor 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 removal from a storm drain. "The girl from Widow Hills" was instantly famous and would be forever. Anniversaries of the event, her mother's book about the experience, and a community that wouldn't allow her to forget--all drove Arden to move and then move again, eventually changing her name to Olivia, leaving behind her mother--who was slowly destroyed by the fame and relentless attention--and led her to speak of the experience to no one in an attempt to move on. Olivia is sleepwalking again and isn't entirely sure what she does in the night. And now someone from her past has resurfaced. He could reveal her carefully hidden secrets and ruin everything. My book club heard Miranda talk about this story at a virtual library foundation event in the fall, and she hooked us on the whole situation! 02 The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen I recently sat down to read and review the prequel to Johansen's Queen of the Tearling trilogy, Beneath the Keep, which is when I realized I'd never read this third and final book in the series, so I paused to read this one first. Two interconnected timelines are running through The Fate of the Tearling: that of the current Tearling, with its horrifically varied nefarious activity and dark dealings, and the long-ago world of William Tear’s idealistic Tearling, where everyone is considered special in their own way but equal in importance, with equal opportunity for all. Johansen offers monsters, elaborate escape plans and rescue plots, and two strong, clever queens savvily playing with the lines of trust and manipulation. 03 I Was Told It Would Get Easier by Abbi Waxman Jessica is a single mom, successful lawyer, and wise mentor to other women at her firm. Emily is her teenaged daughter who's unsure about what she wants from her future and is generally irritated by her mother and her fervent interest in Emily's plans. When mother and daughter head out for a weeklong tour of east coast colleges with a touring company, Jessica's hoping for some quality time together, like they would have enjoyed in the days before everything she did seemed to set Emily off. Emily's just trying to escape the drama at her private school in Los Angeles, and she's not at all convinced that college is in the cards for her anyway. The pair bond over an awkward dinner with Jessica's flirtatious college boyfriend; run-ins with an insufferably snobby mother-daughter pair from home; an interrogation from Jessica's father (Emily's grandfather), who demands details of Emily's career plans; and moments of levity with delightful, unexpected new friends. I'm listening to this as an audiobook, and so far Waxman (also the author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill) has offered a nice dose of feminism, realistically fraught mother-daughter interactions, and laugh-out-loud funny moments. What are you reading these days? I've got a mysterious story with an unreliable narrator and an imagined nationwide hubbub (a la "baby Jessica" and the well), the third and final book in a captivating fantasy trilogy, and a lighter fiction title that still manages to get to the heart of complicated mother-daughter relationships. Which books are you reading and enjoying these days?

There's enough injustice and crooked dealing in this captivating book to fully enrage a reader, yet the tone of Majumdar's debut title is, interestingly, relatively light. Many years ago I would have been asking why is this happening? But now I am knowing that there is no use asking these questions. In life, many things are happening for no reason at all. In contemporary India, Jivan, a young Muslim girl, becomes tangentially entangled with the wrong people and also posts criticism of the government on social media. She quickly finds herself accused of being part of a terrible crime and jailed for sedition. Jivan is a scapegoat, tragically set out as an example of what happens to those who voice even justified bad-mouthing of those in power. Within Jivan's orbit are characters like PT Sir, her gym teacher, a vulnerable and opportunistic fellow who stumbles into being a powerful lynchpin of the right-wing political party. He is manipulated--by being paid the positive attention he desperately desires--into taking the helm of enacting the party's dangerous and destructive methods of gaining the support of the populace and ultimately gaining control of the government. He pridefully subsumes his reservations and his feelings of responsibility about the harm and death in his wake in favor of comfort and perceived power. Another key character is Lovely, a transgender amateur actress with ambition. She is a societal outcast and yet an aggressive hustler who earns a living by demanding payment for bestowing blessings upon strangers. Jivan had been kindly teaching Lovely English, and Lovely might be able to serve as a valuable alibi--if she's willing to pit herself against the bloodlust of the community for punishment for Jivan, and essentially give up her acting dreams. Majumdar has said that she wanted "to write about how people hold big dreams and chase a better life when the institutions and systems don't serve them." There are currents throughout A Burning regarding the heavy yoke of society's structure and class limitations; the manifestation of positive and negative expectations; and the thorny rewards of compromising one's morals and obligations and harming others in order to benefit the self. There's enough injustice and crooked dealing here to fully enrage a reader, yet the tone of this book is relatively light. It's an interesting juxtaposition when considered along the often weighty examples throughout the book of injustice, punishment, scapegoats, class oppression, and female indignities. I think Majumdar, who is also a book editor, struck a fascinating balance between a frank, almost matter-of-fact documentation of events and how tragic and infuriating the events themselves are. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I want to talk about this book! Have you read it? I mentioned A Burning (along with The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow and Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/2/21 Edition.

I loved this. 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. 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. While events on Earth spiral into world war and destruction, sending the space missions toward uncertain futures, Romy and J make contact. They message each other, share their hopes and fears, and quickly grow to rely on each other--the only two humans in the universe experiencing their unusual set of circumstances. They begin to forge a bond Romy never would have anticipated. But the odd messages she begins receiving from Earth (and from J himself) begin to throw everything she knows about J--her only link to humanity--into doubt. I loved this. Romy is on her own in space, haunted by the events that led to her solo venture. Her soaring hopes of human contact, her vulnerability and romanticized ideas--and then her growing doubts--her self-reliance, quick thinking, and strength of character, and the shifts and twists of the book all kept me hooked. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? James is also the author of The Quiet at the End of the World, The Next Together and its sequel The Last Beginning, The Starlight Watchmaker, and other books. I haven't read any of these others yet. I first mentioned The Loneliest Girl in the Universe (along with The Unwilling by John Hart and Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 1/28/21 Edition.

In case you missed it: Aimee Molloy's page-turner is a quick read with a major--if manipulative-feeling--plot twist. The characters in The Perfect Mother make endless poor or nerve-wracking choices (stealing, sharing information not meant for others, failing to meet professional deadlines, spying, ultimately turning on each other, and in one disturbing instance, a married character secretly meets a stranger for intimacy--despite actively feeling disgust and complicated and strong emotions surrounding having been assaulted in the past—in order to try to get information about the mystery at hand). There are looming and worrisome money troubles in one family with a newborn that kept me supremely nervous. Molloy's main characters are new moms, but the vast majority of their questionable choices don’t feel linked to attempts to free themselves from “perfect mother” aspirations, nor do they seem to be a deliberate rejection of unrealistic expectations for parenting or relationships. The main character remains an empty vessel who can conveniently be believed to have done a horrific thing, but the emotional distance established also prevented me from from feeling connected to her and her troubles. Despite the main protagonists' immense relief at having a resolution to the terrible situation at hand, I found it difficult to believe that after all of the trauma and betrayals—and what ultimately felt like thin bonds holding the women together in the first place—they would ever purposely see each other again, so the final scene left me shrugging my shoulders a little bit, although I liked seeing Winnie in action again and seeing her natural caution. The Perfect Mother is a quick read and a page-turner, although you may consistently suspect that you’re being manipulated. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? If you like mysteries with twist, you may be in for Molloy's newest book, Goodnight Beautiful. If you've read either or both of these books, I'd love to talk about the similarities and differences in the books' twists and how they went over with you!

Newlyweds Sam and Annie haven't known each other long. They realize their whole lives could be shattered as the lies they've been telling each other come to light. Sam and Annie didn't know each other long before becoming engaged and getting married. Now they're newlyweds starting a life together in upstate New York. Sam is starting up a private practice in his sleepy hometown as a therapist, while Annie tries to find her own path and stay busy. Sam's father left his mother for a younger woman years ago, which deeply fractured their father-son relationship. Sam says he abhors the man, but locals are constantly reminding Annie that Sam was a heartbreaker in his younger years. They frequently express their shock that he's settled down, intimating that he was expected to follow in his father's footsteps as a lifelong playboy--and that they believe he still may. Meanwhile, Sam's mother is suffering from dementia. Sam and Annie alternate visiting days with her. Except...Annie finds out that Sam's been lying. He's said he was with his mother, but he hasn't been showing up. Now he's disappeared altogether and isn't picking up his calls. So where has he been, what is he up to, and what other lies have been shaping their lives? Will they ever be able to trust each other again? And where is Sam? For the first third of the book, I strongly considered not finishing Goodnight Beautiful. The characters seemed shallow and unsympathetic; they were obsessed with money and seemed greedy; they were largely concerned with drinking and holding a regular happy hour for two; they often seemed silly, naive, and vapid; and they were lying to each other about their pasts. Several characters seemed unappealing and potentially too-obvious drivers of complications (the young, flirtatious French patient in the therapist's office who serves as a temptation; the bored, emotionally immature housewife desperate to keep her new husband happy; and the insecure middle-aged recently married man with a wandering eye). But this book has a major twist. A third of the way through, it becomes clear that things aren't at all what they seem. (Because I was listening to the audiobook, I couldn't then flip through the first part of the book with the shifted situation in mind like I wanted to. Yet listening to the twist occur in the audiobook may have made the unreliable narrator aspect even more arresting than it would be on the page.) After the story's twist becomes clear, the rest of the book is a waiting game; the reader stands by while the characters slowly creep toward the truth the reader already knows. The trick occurs early (also, one major aspect of the true situation directly echoes a fictional setup made famous by a well-known author that is directly referenced within the text), so there isn't much mystery left for the reader for the majority of the story. Yet once the jig is up for the reader, Molloy offers a deeper sense of her characters, offering vulnerabilities and a sense of their real selves. I liked getting a peek at the protagonists' true selves. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I first mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/9/21 Edition. Molloy is also the author of The Perfect Mother, which has its own twist and unreliable narrator. Have you read either or both of these books? How did you think the structure of the twists compared? What did you think once you realized you'd been manipulated into believing faulty premises?

01 The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld This book is dark and beautiful, with such expansive descriptions of the mountains, the closed-in forests, and the traps and dangers of the winter and the wild that I could almost feel the cold. The elements that feel potentially familiar or could have felt overused from use in other stories (a tough, closed-off investigator, broken by her past; a strong, kind man’s singular, devoted but unrequited love for her; the general outline of the disturbing situation at the heart of the book’s main case) are cushioned by Denfeld’s skillful setting of the scene and lovely shaping of the story. I found this to be a fast and engrossing read. There's a second book in this Naomi Cottle series, The Butterfly Girl, which I haven't yet read, and Denfeld also wrote The Enchanted, which I thought was haunting and arresting. If you like unlikely heroines and missing-person plots, you might also like Before She Disappeared, which I thought was a fantastic book. 02 The North Water by Ian McGuire “He finds the lying comes easy enough, of course. Words are just noises in a certain order, and he can use them any way he wishes. Pigs grunt, ducks quack, and men tell lies: that is how it generally goes.” In 1859, a whaling ship sets sail for the Arctic Circle. It's full of rough characters and men eager to leave their pasts behind, including Patrick Sumner, a doctor who's desperate enough to take the job of ship's surgeon on the boat. But the ship's fate proves more disastrous than Sumner could have imagined when a cabin boy is brutally killed and the culprit turns out to be a cruel, ruthless murderer on board. This was probably 3.75 stars for me. The North Waters is a dark, disturbing exploration of failed second chances, revenge, and destructive base instincts. I found it haunting. McGuire is also the author of Incredible Bodies and The Abstainer. 03 First Light by Rebecca Stead Peter is a teenager from New York City thrilled to be accompanying his scientist parents on an expedition to Greenland. Thea and her people, long accused of witchcraft and magic, live within the Greenland ice, and Thea has never seen the sun. The two intersect within Stead's unique story as Peter tries to discover more about Thea's people's threat of extinction. The pacing of First Light is a little slow at first, and I would have liked to see more science-based details about global warming throughout. The standouts for me in First Light were the Greenland setting, the alternate world, the bitter cold, and the sentimentalism and mystery that were so vividly imagined. I was hooked. This was the author's first young adult book. Stead is also the author of the outstanding Goodbye Stranger, as well as other great books: When You Reach Me, Liar & Spy, and The List of Things That Will Not Change. 04 Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips Julia Phillips's interconnected stories follow in chapters that take place each month for a year after the disappearance of two girls on the edge of Russia. The rural Siberian settings are exquisitely wrought, with stark, rugged, lush landscapes serving as the backdrop for a mystery that shakes a small community. Disappearing Earth is a story that is as much about the varied cast of characters, the closed-off, remote community, and the vivid sense of place and cold setting that Phillips imagines as it is about the mystery itself. It isn't a police procedural; this is a starkly beautiful book that happens to have a mystery at its heart. This is Phillips's first book, and the author builds the story's pace steadily toward a crescendo. The ending doesn't necessarily provide all the answers, but Phillips provides enough pieces of the puzzle to create closure. I still think about Disappearing Earth from time to time, long after reading it. I also listed Disappearing Earth in the Greedy Reading List The Six Best Mysteries I Read Last Year. 05 The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander In this beautiful nonfiction book, which includes striking black-and-white photographs by Frank Hurley, Alexander traces explorer Ernest Shackleton's 1914 voyage to the South Atlantic as he and his crew of twenty-seven men attempted to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent on foot. In what is now a famously ill-fated turn of events, the ship Endurance became trapped in the ice and crushed, leaving the crew marooned on the ice in a brutal fight for survival that lasted twenty months. The very existence of Hurley's images is incredible; the glass plate negatives lasted through months on ice floes, a week's travel in an open boat, and months buried in the snow. Eventually Hurley had to leave behind his professional camera and equipment, capturing the images here with "a pocket camera and three rolls of Kodak film." The book was published in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History's extensive exhibition on Shackleton's exploration, which was one of the last great expeditions in the Age of Exploration. 06 To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey “There is a mythical element to our childhood, it seems, that stays with us always. When we are young, we consume the world in great gulps, and it consumes us, and everything is mysterious and alive and fills us with desire and wonder, fear, and guilt. With the passing of the years, however, those memories become distant and malleable, and we shape them into the stories of who we are. We are brave, or we are cowardly. We are loving, or we are cruel.” To the Bright Edge of the World is a story of discovery, adventure, tedious slogging, danger, and self-revelation in the wilds of nineteenth century Alaska, interspersed with scenes from a home life on a military base in Washington Territory--and a surprisingly meaningful modern-day correspondence linked to it all. Ivey's fantastical elements are inspired by Native American folklore and stories, and they work well here, causing the characters to broaden their views of the great unknown world, but without overshadowing the detailed, vibrant descriptions grounded in exploration and nature. Ivey also wrote The Snow Child, a book listed on the Greedy Reading List Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love. What are some of your favorite cold-setting books? Other books I've loved that could have appeared on this list include Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child, mentioned above, and Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy, both of which were listed on the Greedy Reading List Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love, and Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. The books on the Greedy Reading List Six Captivating Nordic Stories would also fit nicely here. Promising books on my to-read list that would also fit this criteria: Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May, The Arctic Fear by Greer Macallister, Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter, The Captive by Fiona King Foster, Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice, Winter World, the first in a series by A.G. Riddle, and Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman. Have you read any of these? Any thoughts? What other books would you include on this list? Do you like reading cold-setting books in the winter, or does reading about frigid temperatures while you're living in frigid temperatures feel too close to reality for comfort?

01 Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton Eli Bell is a young man in a tough spot. His father's gone, his mother's in jail, and his best friend and most solid source of advice is a convicted felon and legendary prison escapee, Slim. Eli's older brother August is brilliant, but he never speaks. It's complicated. Eli lives in a bleak, distant suburb of Brisbane. He wants to grow up and become a journalist. Meanwhile his main goal is trying not to attract too much attention or bring any trouble down on himself or his brother. Then Tytus Broz, an infamous drug dealer, reemerges in Eli's and August's lives. He had a relationship with their parents, and now their family is in shambles. Eli isn't inclined to listen to any opportunities or ideas from the man. But when Tytus says jump, you jump. And it's not like Eli has many options right now anyway. If he can just manage the situation as carefully and logically as he manages the rest of his problems, things just might turn out all right. He can't face any other possibility. 02 Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy Sam and Annie didn't know each other long before becoming engaged and getting married. Now they're newlyweds starting a life together in upstate New York. Sam is starting a private practice in the sleepy town as a therapist, while Annie tries to find her own path and busy herself. Sam's father left his mother for a younger woman years before, deeply fracturing their father-son relationship. Sam says he abhors the man, but locals are constantly reminding Annie that Sam was a heartbreaker in his younger years and frequently expressing their shock that he's settled down. They intimate that he was expected to follow in his father's footsteps as a lifelong playboy--and that they believe he still may. Meanwhile, Sam's mother is suffering from dementia. He and Annie alternate visiting days with her. Except...Annie finds out that Sam's been lying. He's said he was with his mother, but he hasn't been showing up. Now he's disappeared altogether. So where has he been, what is he up to, and what other lies have been shaping their lives? This book has a major twist, made even more interesting by listening to the audio version. 03 Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Stories by Danielle Evans “He kissed her forehead and said, “My little lady of ruthless ambition.” In the months after that, he would sometimes ask her “How’s conquering the world going, my sweet ruthless girl?” in the delighted dumbed-down tone you would use to tell a house pet it was ferocious. She would nuzzle him, beginning to understand that just because he didn’t see something in her didn’t mean it wasn’t there, knowing there was still some freedom in the way he did no fathom yet how real and how necessary her ruthlessness would be.” Evans, author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, offers short stories centering around themes of race, relationships, grief, and loss. She uses everyday moments to illustrate how the truth of history can be skewed and determined by who has the power to tell stories. In the attention-grabbing title novella, a black student from Washington, DC, finds herself involved in unraveling a complicated historical mystery that extends over generations and puts her closest friendship, her love life, and her career in jeopardy. What are you reading these days? This is a pretty satisfying eclectic mix for me: a potentially heartbreaking and heartwarming book about unlikely friendship and a young man's bravery; a mystery with a twist; and a collection of stories about race, relationships, and the power of history. Which books are you reading and enjoying these days?

Hart reliably offers character-driven mysteries with heartbreaking interpersonal complications. The twists and turns here are excellent, with interestingly layered motivations and compromises. The Unwilling is John Hart's newest book, published last week. Hart's books reliably offer deftly crafted, often stark landscapes, character-driven stories, heartbreaking situations and compromises, and enough protagonists' strength and grit to stick with you. The Unwilling offers all of those elements and more, unraveling the workings of a family in the South during the Vietnam War, including brothers at odds; as well as complex issues regarding corruption, prison, war, money, power, and violence; and a brother's unfailing loyalty in the face of terrible conflict and danger. Hart tells a captivating story of broken boys and men, battered by experiences of wartime brutality or frozen by the fear of their potential involvement in battle; the destruction of drugs and other desperate attempts to forget; limited choices and bad decisions; deeply felt loss; and crushing familial and societal expectations. There are intensely grisly elements here--deeply upsetting, excruciating torture and willful cruelty; a shockingly corrupt prison system in which inmates' reaches extend disturbingly far beyond the walls; extensive page time spent with a sociopathic serial killer on death row; and a complicated wartime-hinged flux of feelings about duty, destiny, and death. But Hart also offers the hope of young love, the bedrock of true friendship, and brothers and their father who are earnestly trying to heal rifts that threaten to split them forever. The twists and turns here are excellent, with interestingly layered motivations and complications. One moment is shown to turn multiple situations and lives on their heads. The book is set in Charlotte, although the setting is not pivotal to the plot. I received a prepublication copy of The Unwilling courtesy of St. Martin's Press and NetGalley. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I mentioned my love for Hart's book The Last Child in the Greedy Reading List The Six Best Mysteries I Read Last Year. He's written many other books, including The Hush, the second in the Johnny Merrimon series, and the wonderfully written, often tough-to-read Redemption Road. I first mentioned The Unwilling (along with The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James and Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 1/28/21 Edition.

01 The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden This is an ancient-feeling, dark fairy tale of a story that takes place within a small Russian village and centers around an extended family. "True believers" are pitted against dark, feared forces, turning what the village collectively believes to be good and pure on its head. Those who triumph over destructive righteousness, blind obedience, and attempts at wielding selfish power do so by remembering the old ways, defying expectations, and showing limitless bravery. A few elements (tying the original appearances of the dark force to later more fully realized appearances, for example) meandered along and might've been shored up more fully. But the writing was ethereal and practically brought a chill to my skin as I read about the snow and cold danger. The main protagonist and conflicted priest were irresistible characters. The Bear and the Nightingale is the first book in the Winternight trilogy. The Girl in the Tower and The Winter of the Witch are the others, and I think Arden's stories get even stronger as the series goes on, with complex interpersonal relationships, court politics, mystical creatures, and wonderful character development. 02 The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey I'm a sucker for hardscrabble Alaska stories, but this book goes well beyond that. In The Snow Child, Ivey shares a luminous tale, based on a Russain folktale, set in the snow and unforgiving cold. In 1920s Alaska, Jack and Mabel are struggling. They desperately wanted children, but that part of their lives was not destined to be. They're getting older, and Jack buries himself in the backbreaking work on the farm while Mabel turns inward, driven to despair and hopelessness. In an impossible, magical turn of events, a moment of simple winter joy leads to renewed hope that they may be able to share their love with a child after all. Ivey intersperses fairy tale-like elements with evocative details of the cold, stark atmosphere in which they take place. I wasn't initially sure I was going to be able to suspend my disbelief as I dove into the story, but Ivey engrossed me fully in the world and its workings. I really liked this story and I still think about this book, years after reading it. My book club was not unanimously sold on this book, to the point that I'm tempted to include it in a future Greedy Reading List called "Books to Break Your Book Club." But if you like magical realism, this is a hauntingly lovely, wintry read. Ivey's book To the Bright Edge of the World was also wonderful, and will appear on the upcoming Greedy Reading List Six Books with Cold, Wintry Settings to Read by the Fire. 03 Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik Miryem comes from a family of moneylenders who are on the verge of being unable to provide for themselves any longer. So Miryem sets herself the task of collecting the debts owed to her family, earning her the reputation of being able to spin silver into gold. When a foolish boast forces Miryem into a position of meeting the tsar's impossible challenge, she finds that the mysterious tsar isn't what he seems. The swirl of events draws other innocent young women into Miryem's complicated web and toward potential ruin for all of them. Spinning Silver is a creatively and fully reimagined version of Rumpelstiltskin, but Novik goes well above and beyond that fairy tale. Novik's story offers endless odd, lovely, unexpected, and complex elements. The magical and irresistible tale includes protagonists with kickass girl power; multiple and haunting twists and turns I was eager to ride out with the characters; and a magic touch in telling a well-known story with more heart that I would have imagined. 04 The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker In Helene Wecker's tale, which has roots in Jewish and Arab folk mythology, the lives of two outwardly human mythical creatures intersect in the dark Bowery of late 19th century New York. Chavia is a golem of clay brought to life by a desperate, disgraced rabbi, sent across the ocean to New York City, while Ahmad is a jinni, a being made of fire created in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped in a copper flask that makes its way to New York City as well. The two become linked and grow to be unlikely soul mates. The Golem and the Jinni explores issues of ownership, responsibility, and belonging, as Wecker simultaneously digs into the creatures' feelings, loyalty, and true affection. Wecker offers sentimental moments of discovery, yet the tone of the book often feels dispassionate, as though it is a study of such things, measured at a distance. This is magical realism, folklore, and historical fiction wrapped up in one very interesting read. 05 The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo The Night Tiger is a wonderful historical fiction mystery and love story shaped by superstition, fables, and tales. Ji Lin is a young girl who would have dreamed of becoming a doctor if society would allow it, but she's stuck working off her mother's Mahjong debts by being a lowly dance hall girl. She encounters a Chinese houseboy, Ren, on a bizarre mission, and their paths become intertwined around a superstition that men can turn into tigers. Ji Lin doesn’t fit the mold of a typical woman from 1930s Malaysia or that of the British colonists living there—in all wonderful ways. She’s itching for (and finds) adventure, knowledge, and much more in her life than the loveless match she was expected to make. She speaks her mind and ruffles feathers even as she exploits assumptions about women, sexual attraction, and power. There's magical realism at the heart of this book, and Choo also examines colonialism, superstition, and young love. I thought it was fascinating. I listed this book in the Greedy Reading List Six Historical Fiction Mysteries to Intrigue You. 06 Uprooted by Naomi Novik “Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.” Agnieszka has grown up in a quiet village, surrounded by people she loves. But evil lurks in the nearby Wood, with the dark presence of the wizard they call the Dragon looming over all of them. The Dragon keeps them safe from the Wood, but at a high price: each year he demands one young woman from the village. She is taken for ten years to serve him. The next choosing is coming up quickly, and Agnieszka is sure that her best friend Kasia will be next to go. She considers every desperate plan she can to try to save Kasia from this horrible fate, knowing all the while that she cannot prevent what is to happen. This is the second Naomi Novik book on this short list because she reimagines fairy tales so captivatingly. Uprooted is a thoughtful, satisfying grown-up fairy tale with gloriously imagined details. I ate it up. I feel compelled to also mention that Novik has a series of nine books about dragons, the Temeraire series, and yes, the dragons talk and are haughty and greedy and intensely loyal to their riders, and yes, there are lots of world politics and nations' relationships and airborne dragon battles within the books, and yes, the human protagonists are wonderfully faulted and fantastic. What are some of your favorite fairy tale-type books or retellings? For the purposes of this list, I focused on books with fantastical elements; clear good-and-evil conflicts; characters living as royalty or in poverty or both; traditional or newly imagined imagery; metamorphoses, enchantments, or magic; a concentration on wishes and dreams; and especially those with roots in fairy tales, fables, or folklore. Many other titles could also potentially fall under this umbrella, including Gregory Maguire's Wicked and other books, F.C. Yee's Epic Crush of Genie Lo and its sequels, Alexandra Christo's To Kill a Kingdom series, and Marissa Meyer's Cinder and others. Some promising books on my to-read list would fit this bill as well, including: Thorn by Intisar Khanani, Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente, and Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi. What other books would you include on this list? What fairy tales for grown-ups have you loved?

I was especially taken with the sisters' complicated relationships and with the link Harrow draws between witching and the women's suffrage movement. She begins to believe that the words and ways are whichever ones a woman has, and that a witch is merely a woman who needs more than she has. In The Once and Future Witches, Harrow writes about three sisters raised by a powerful mother who refused to leave the man who slowly destroyed her. The bitter and broken sisters learned certain powerful ways and words at the knee of their witchy grandmother Mags, then were separated by tragedy. These days there's no more witching, no more will for spells and change in the world. Or so most people believe. Each of the three main protagonists here is a young woman in the midst of her own high-stakes crisis, and none of them expects to ever find the others again. But when the long-lost sisters do unexpectedly cross each other's paths at last, the world's seams split, offering a glimpse into another land, a buffeting wind, and a burst of terrible power, indicating the weight they might have if they could find a way to channel their collective knowledge and potential. The women must decide whether to ignore what's occurred and move on, or to try and harness and master the spells they've been taught--and those they've picked up from women and stories and whispers along the way. The sisters are meanwhile trying to find a way back together after grave betrayals and years of broken trust, and they're each navigating various personal difficulties of their own: an out-of-wedlock pregnancy; involvement in the much-maligned and persecuted women's suffrage movement; and a romantic attraction that would be frowned on if made known to society--and even punishable by law. Harrow provides a villain you'll love to hate: he oppresses women, smugly and sneakily instills fear, and stokes the fires of disturbance, all while holding a personal vendetta against the Eastwood sisters themselves; as one sister says: She is almost surprised by how much she hates him, and how familiar the hate feels in her chest: the bitter, futile hatred of the weak for the powerful, the small for the strong. I adored how Harrow intermingled the women's suffrage movement with the reemergence of witching and women's efforts to reclaim power in manners large and small:"...Suffrage and spells.... They're both a kind of power, aren't they? The kind we aren't allowed to have...." Your blood may boil when you read the incessant underestimating of women and condescending tone of the bad guys here: "And frankly," Mr. Hill had told the papers, "if this is what happens when women gain some measure of power, we have grave doubts about the advisability of granting them more." I was especially taken with the sisters' complicated relationships with each other in The Once and Future Witches. While at a few points I felt like the dramatic situations or dialogue distracted me from what felt like the heart of the story (the Eastwoods' helping women with their everyday struggles for more control over their lives), I was willing to suspend my disbelief in order to dive into the witchy wonder here. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? The author's first book, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, felt unexpected, sometimes dark, ultimately hopeful, and just wonderful. I mentioned The Once and Future Witches (along with A Burning and Hamnet) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/2/21 Edition.

The character-driven post-WWII story was wonderful, with compelling and lush detail and a gutsy female pilot determined to help take down the Nazis. Nina Markova always wanted to fly, and when Nazis begin to wreak havoc on the Soviet Union, she joins the Night Witches, an all-female regiment of night bombers pushing back the Germans. That is, until Nina becomes stranded behind enemy lines. I thought the character-driven post-WWII story was wonderful, with compelling and lush detail about tough female pilots; life in the Siberian wild; Boston; antiques and photography; and the patient, persistent, creative detective work by Ian, Tony, and Nina. The reader is able to see events unfolding while the characters remain unaware, but watching the pieces shift and click into place is immensely satisfying. I'm in for World War II-set books with tough, brave female protagonists, and especially female pilots, and I loved this book. Any Bossy thoughts on this book? I sometimes think that I'm about to max out on World War II historical fiction. Then I come to my senses and realize that's crazy talk, and I stack my to-read list with more more more. Kate Quinn is also the author of the wonderful Alice Network. This book was mentioned in the Greedy Reading List Six Historical Fiction Books I Loved Over the Past Year.

The interconnectedness of the characters and the details of household life and power structures of the time period were wonderful and the standout elements of the book to me. O'Farrell, who has written many books I've loved, here tackles a novel of the plague and a story loosely based on Shakespeare's marriage, family, and work. This was a relatively slow climb toward a societal calamity (in the form of the plague) and personal tragedy (in the form of the family's loss of a child to the plague). I wondered if the timing of this reading experience was going to be enjoyable--reading a book about the plague during a global pandemic might not be ideal. But O'Farrell has crafted a story that is primarily about a family--their hopes, dreams, and the sometimes heartbreaking limitations and sobering realities of each person within it. The interconnectedness between strangers and family members and the world was one of the most interesting aspects for me. The book started off at a measured pace. The details of the time, household life, and gender, vocation, and familial power structures were wonderful and the standout elements of the book to me. O'Farrell imagined Agnes, wife to John (the fictionalized William Shakespeare character) as an independent, witchy, strong, and appealing female character. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? What O'Farrell writes, I generally adore--and her range is incredible. I loved I Am, I Am, I Am, and I really liked The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Instructions for a Heatwave, and This Must Be the Place. (The Hand that First Held Mine and After You'd Gone are both on my to-read list.)

01 A Burning by Megha Majumdar “Many years ago I would have been asking why is this happening? But now I am knowing that there is no use asking these questions. In life, many things are happening for no reason at all.” In contemporary India, Jivan, a young Muslim girl, becomes tangentially entangled with the wrong people and posts questionable comments about the government on social media. As a result, she finds herself accused of being part of a terrible crime and jailed for sedition. Within the story's orbit are characters like PT Sir, an ambitious gym teacher who stumbles into being a staunch supporter of the right-wing political party, and Lovely, an outcast who might be able to save Jivan by serving as an alibi, if anyone would believe her. So far the tone of this book is relatively light, which is interesting placed in juxtaposition with the weighty, enraging topics explored here of injustice, punishment, scapegoats, class oppression, and female indignities. 02 The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow In The Once and Future Witches, Harrow, the author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, writes about three sisters who were raised by a powerful mother and now separated by tragedy in an era when there's no more witching. Or so most people believe. Each of the three young women is in the middle of her own high-stakes crisis, and none of them expects to ever find the others again. But when they unexpectedly cross each other's paths, the world's seams split, offering a glimpse into another land, a buffeting wind, and a burst of terrible power. The women must decide whether to ignore what's occurred or to harness and master the spells they've been taught by their witchy grandmother, while also navigating various personal difficulties of their own--an out-of-wedlock pregnancy; involvement in the much-maligned and persecuted women's suffrage movement; and a romantic attraction that would be frowned on and even punishable by law. 03 Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell O'Farrell, who has written many books I've loved, here tackles a novel of the plague and a story loosely based on Shakespeare's marriage and family and work. So far, this is a slow climb toward a societal calamity (in the form of the plague) and personal tragedy (in the form of the family's loss of a child to the plague). The details of the time, household life, and gender, vocation, and familial power structures are wonderful, and the way O'Farrell imagines Agnes as wife of John (the fictionalized William Shakespeare character) is as an independent, witchy, and appealing female character. What are you reading these days? Each of these books is a story about class and gender and power in its own way, told in disparate times and through different contexts. There's also a theme running through all three of women striving for more--more opportunities, justice, or control. Which books are you reading and enjoying these days?

The kingdom's evils are intensely detailed and extensively explored; this motivates characters to seek change, but also made the book difficult to read. Beneath the Keep, to be published 2/2/21, is a prequel to Erika Johansen's Queen of the Tearling series (three other books are in the series, The Queen of the Tearling, The Invasion of the Tearling, and The Fate of the Tearling). This book traces the history of the Tearling as a kingdom crushed by famine, feudalism, corruption, greed, and unrest--which spurs on some citizens to attempt to shift the kingdom toward becoming a land with strong new hope and opportunity. Meanwhile the fabled True Queen is said to be poised to save them all. Is Princess Elyssa the one they've all been waiting for? Elyssa recalls that the history shared by her tutor Lady Glynn was made up of: "...tales of good, but much more of evil, of humanity‘s vast suffering, of suffering that could have been averted at so many turns if only there had been someone of true heart, of good intent…. If only that person had stepped forward at the right moment…" The Tearling kingdom is (literally) built upon an actual underground warren (the Creche) of tunnels housing a commercial system based on degenerate activity, the opportunity to act upon cruel whims, and insufferably atrocious exchanges of money, drugs, and paid-for rape in various forms. "...Crèche babies, likely sold in their first weeks of life...had each learned the great lesson of the tunnels: in a world where brutality was a constant, it was infinitely better to be the one holding the whip.” Beneath the Keep is absolutely steeped in the darkest imaginable and shockingly widespread depravity: trafficking in children and adults; vulnerable people used as slaves for sex; brutal fighting to the death; and various other horrors. There's extensive page time spent on ghastly monstrousness. Some of the characters I loved from the rest of the series (I'm looking at you, Mace, and also the Fetch--side note, that nickname always reminds me of the very off-topic movie Mean Girls) are star players within this dystopian period of Johansen's Tearling world. Childhood bonds and shared difficulties are heavily featured and are shown to be enormously important to shaping the book's characters and their life paths (for example, Christian and Maura; Brenna and Arlen; Aislynn and Liam); these bonds are similarly key in the final book of the series, The Fate of the Tearling (in that case, with Katie and Row and Katie and Jonathan). Another common theme between this prequel and the final book in the trilogy is the widespread suffering (and significant effect on the plot) caused by the actions of bitter, unacknowledged heirs (Row; Arlen). I loved Aislynn's attempts to achieve upheaval in the wake of her life horrors, and her renewed, fierce desire to seek justice. Yet as in The Fate of the Tearling, populist movements are cruelly crushed, along with hope for a better world for all. Beneath the Keep sets up a scene of sweeping societal despair and its flip side: an opportunity for new beginnings to take place in The Queen of the Tearling. But Beneath the Keep's events are almost universally bleak, with so much lost, so many horrors, so many instances of depravity and pure evil, good generally losing out to bad, and endless terrible impulses wreaking havoc on individuals and on society as a whole. A corrupt church and faulted religion are presented as contributing to broad destruction and greed. Throughout the series there is a dark undercurrent that serves as either a motivator for warped debauchery or as inspiration for change. But in Beneath the Keep the evils are intensely detailed and constantly explored. It was really difficult to read a book with so much page time spent on abuse and violence. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I first mentioned Beneath the Keep (along with The Loneliest Girl in the Universe and The Unwilling) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 1/28/21 Edition. I received a prepublication copy of this book courtesy of Dutton Books and NetGalley.

01 Inland by Téa Obreht Much of Téa Obreht's Inland is centered around Nora, an impulsive, hot-tempered, strong woman fighting for a hardscrabble life for her family in a remote town during a devastating drought. The other plotline concerns Lurie, a man who has adventures and challenges with his surprising, loyal, exotic companion. The two disparate stories intersect in an unlikely way in 1890s Arizona Territory, and fantastical elements throughout make even the most jaded characters believe in the odd and implausible in this remarkable book. I read this story as an e-book and was therefore robbed of gazing at this gorgeous cover. I adore it. Random House Publishing Group provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. For my full review of Inland, please click here. 02 Whiskey When We're Dry by John Larison In 1885, Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on the homestead. Seventeen-year-old girls aren't safe on their own, so Jess cuts her hair, binds her chest, and saddles up for a trip across the mountains in search of her lawless brother Noah. Jess is such a good shot, she ends up working for the mean-as-a-snake governor of the territory--and finds that the governor's armed forces are hunting for Noah and intend to capture him, dead or alive. “What started the war, Pa?" His eyes settled on me. "Stories, Jessilyn. We tell ourselves the wrong stories.” I love love love a character-driven western. Jess's voice was fantastic. She grapples with the stories she's been told as compared to the reality she experiences as she makes her way. Whiskey When We're Dry is a rough, heart wrenching, and wonderful story from John Larison. 03 Only Killers and Thieves by Paul Howarth This book is not set in the American West. But the atmospheric setting and the tone of it places it firmly among the other books on this list, so I Bossily included it. Set in the Australian outback at the end of the 19th century, Only Killers and Thieves centers around one family’s conflicts with others and with each other. One poor judgment leads to another, foolish choices end in bloodshed, one brother makes justifications and feels no remorse while the other feels crushed by it all. Toward the end we see messy second chances take shape, a little retribution, and an attempt at a changed existence—but the haunting memories of the past creep in relentlessly. This is an often brutal book to read, but it was beautifully written, in a style that felt perfectly suited for the stark setting. I thought about this one long after I finished it. Disturbing and a mind churner. For my full review of this book, please see Only Killers and Thieves. Howarth has a sequel, Dust Off the Bones, scheduled for publication early this summer. 04 Doc by Mary Doria Russell I lied again about this list. Doc is nonfiction, but it reads like historical fiction (as opposed to a heavier nonfiction title like Tom Clavin's Tombstone, which also includes lots of Doc Holliday information), so I'm Bossily including it. I love Russell’s character-driven books, and this Western, set in Dodge City, Kansas, in the late nineteenth century, is a slow build rather than a dramatic, gun-slinging action story. Doc doesn’t focus on the Tombstone shootout, but instead on Doc Holliday’s life, his brotherlike friendship with the Earps, and his longtime relationship with a Hungarian noblewoman-turned-prostitute, Kate. Russell also interestingly explores Holliday's career as a dentist (at a time when the dental profession was tainted by traveling butchers and thieves), and his gallant, grumpy, well-read, mischievous, and generous-to-a-fault personality. Mary Doria Russell also wrote The Sparrow, which I adored and gave five stars. She's such a gorgeous writer, I'd read anything she tried her hand at writing. 05 Into the Savage Country by Shannon Burke Into the Savage Country is a serenely told story of a band of fur traders--some wild, some considered gentlemen, some one of these but striving to be the other--striking out into the West in the first half of the 1800s. The writing style involves a lot of telling, which seemingly intentionally slows the pacing--and which I usually don't love, but here it gives a fittingly old-fashioned quality to the writing that feels as though it suits the time, the main protagonist, and the tale itself. The group encounters friendly and hostile Native Americans; copes with antagonized and antagonistic British trappers; is threatened with imprisonment; experiences cruel and potentially fatal betrayal by one of their own; faces the wild and its many dangers; suffers grave wounds; and saves each other's skin countless times--including after foolish situations (which seem as though they would have been easily avoided) such as literally waking a sleeping bear and baiting an injured bull. Yet because of the pacing, I didn't necessarily feel on the edge of my seat while I read about all of it. There is a deeper, quiet, surprisingly affecting story beneath the Western adventure, which is about trust, loyalty, sometimes begrudging but deeply felt affection, discovery of self-worth, celebrating differences, and love. And it's the pacing and tone of the story that allows for all of those elements to feel real. 06 News of the World by Paulette Jiles If you and I have ever talked about historical fiction, I've probably mentioned this book. Captain Kidd has fought in three wars, and after the Civil War's end, he serves as a traveling news reader, providing eager listeners along his route with news from the world. Kidd somewhat reluctantly ends up agreeing to transport a young, recently rescued Kiowa captive 400 miles to her extended family. They'll have to pass through lawless lands to get to San Antonio, and Johanna isn't a willing participant in this venture, having become more culturally Kiowa over the years than white and unfamiliar with her remaining blood relatives. Not all of the members of my book club felt as strongly about this one as I did, but I adored every bit of this--Captain Kidd's reluctant but gentlemanly involvement and his voice, the character of Johanna, the Texas setting, the fits and starts of adventure, the noble heart of the story, the humor, and the heartbreak. I loved loved loved it. Jiles also wrote Simon the Fiddler and the glorious The Color of Lightning. Click here for my full review of The News of the World. (Who's seen the movie adaptation of this book, and if you have, what did you think?) What are some of your favorite historical fiction books? If you like books like those above, you might also like the titles on the Greedy Reading List Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West. If you like historical fiction mysteries, you might try the books listed here: Six Historical Fiction Mysteries to Intrigue You. And for great historical fiction of all types, look at: Six Historical Fiction Books I Loved in the Past Year and Six Historical Fiction Books I Loved This Year. Happy reading, bookworms!