The Everlasting involves jaunts through multiple versions of the same story, as our fantastic main protagonists shift and change, bravely outsmart those who would control them, dare to hope for a future together, and fight dark forces until the bitter end. This is adventure-heavy, sometimes tender, and always intriguing. I loved it. Sir Una Everlasting was a legendary knight in the kingdom of Dominion, an orphan who rose to greatness and died in service to her queen. Her bravery is the stuff of fables, but her real story is no longer remembered. Centuries after her death, spindly, awkward, cowardly historian Owen Mallory unearths her story--and becomes inexorably intertwined with the events of Una's life as they occur in the past. The queen Una faithfully served is using Una for her own dastardly purposes, but the extent of her manipulation and ambitions has been hidden--until now. She will break Una before allowing her to be free. Harrow's tale involves multiple do-overs and attempts to shift events and alter reality--while the unlikely couple of Una and Owen fall in love again and again. If Una and Owen are going to change the way history is remembered--or have a chance at a life together--they'll have to work within their queen's bonds, yet reimagine the possibilities for the world around them and their union. The Everlasting is filled with rich adventure; twisty jaunts through time; tragedy and loss; dark turns, boundless hope; messy, happy discoveries; outsmarting those in power; and noble victories. It ticked a million boxes for me as a reader. This is the type of romantic fantasy I adore. No swooning, childish behavior, or foolishness, just hard-won connections, deep character development, bravely defying expectations, and absolutely lovely love. This broke my heart and mended it over and over, in the best ways possible. I love Alix E. Harrow's writing style and worldbuilding, and I loved The Everlasting . I received a prepublication version of this title, published October 28, courtesy of NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group. More Great Books from Alix E. Harrow Alix E. Harrow is also the author of the wonderful The Once and Future Witches , Starling House , and The Ten Thousand Doors of January , as well as A Spindle Splintered , A Mirror Mended , The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage , and Fractured Fables .

This faerie-centric reimagining of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities offered a compelling story of redemption and self-sacrifice with a significant fantasy undercurrent that is key to the plot. I felt bogged down by the explanations of the workings of the faerie system, its punishments, and its policies. I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse. H. G. Parry's novel A Far Better Thing  is a twist on Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities , and Parry introduces a rebellion against faerie powers that takes place against the mayhem of the French Revolution (which is also the backdrop of the Dickens story). In this historical fiction-fantasy, characters from Dickens's tale are plunged into a dark, powerful magical world. Here, Sydney Carton was abducted by faeries when he was a small child, and his doppelgänger Charles Darnay is a changeling. Carton's eventual self-sacrifice, which emerges as unlikely from the boozy, smart but lazy, bitter character, remains in place within this fan-fiction version of the tale. But in Parry's novel he must also reckon with his fantastical origin story (stolen by faeries and pressed into service, including his own baby snatching and other dastardly tasks). He must also face his innate hatred for his counterpart Darnay, which he feels simply because of Darnay's very existence--not to mention Darnay's more handsome, less world-worn version of Carton's appearance, and his romance with the desirable Lucie Manette. "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." Carton is more capable than he initially seems, and he becomes more engaged than seemed likely at the start of the story; he is in fact clever enough to reimagine the tiers of control within the faerie-controlled underbelly of society and powerful enough to potentially shifting long-held power structures. He bands with other disillusioned parties abused by faeries with a grand scheme that they hope will end with a surprise shakeup of the entire magical system. I don't recall reading A Tale of Two Cities , so the value of the allegories is lost on me. The story largely stands on its own, but I did get bogged down by the extensive explanations of the workings of the faerie world and what felt to me to be tedious sidebars about rules, punishments, power structures, and policies. This took me out of the story and killed the momentum for me as a reader. The ending is dramatic, noble, and heartwarming. More Books by this Author and Other Bossy Reviews of Retellings If you like retellings, you may want to check out my Bossy reviews of these titles . H. G. Parry is also the author of The Magician's Daughter , The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep , The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door , Heartless , and The Shadow Histories series.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Sally Gould's memoir about being a paramedic, Frog ; I'm reading H. G. Parry's reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities as a dark, faery-controlled world with the French Revolution as a backdrop, A Far Better Thing ; and I'm reading a King Arthur novel by Lev Grossman, The Bright Sword . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Frog: The Secret Diary of a Paramedic by Sally Gould Sally Gould grew up in Australia the daughter of a paramedic, and she follows in her father's footsteps, training to become a "frog" herself. In her memoir, Gould explores her early days of uncertainty, moments of panic, scenes of complete disgust, tragic endings, and inspiring moments in which her team's arrival saves a life. Gould takes the reader through the ups and downs of the job and is frank about her mental health challenges and how she coped with them. I received a prepublication audiobook version of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and Simon & Schuster Australia. 02 A Far Better Thing by H. G. Parry I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse. H. G. Parry's novel A Far Better Thing is a twist on A Tale of Two Cities , with a rebellion against faery powers taking place within the mayhem of the French Revolution. In this historical fiction-fantasy, characters from Dickens's tale are plunged into a dark, powerful magical world. Here, Sydney Carton was abducted by faeries when he was a small child, and his doppelgänger Charles Darnay is a changeling. Carton is imperfect but capable of shifting power structures, and clever enough to reimagine the faery-controlled underbelly of his world by taking the entire magical system by surprise. 03 The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur by Lev Grossman Collum is an instinctually gifted, strong knight who has literally fought for training as a ward; his family has little use for him, and his heart is set upon joining King Arthur's court. But when he finally makes his way to the Round Table, only elderly, impaired, has-been knights are left, and he learns that Arthur was killed weeks earlier. But Collum refuses to believe that a life as a knight is no longer possible for him. Along with Merlin's apprentice, Nimue, he becomes determined to usher in a new age, where Excalibur is reclaimed, Camelot is secure from would-be usurpers, and the kingdom is inspired again by bravery and might. Lev Grossman is also the author of the Magicians trilogy. I read the first in that series, The Magicians , for but me it was short on magic and fantastical elements, but long on entitlement and malaise. I'm listening to The Bright Sword as an audiobook.

Tough women, secrets and smarts, and sneaky spying! I love a peek at a secret world and books about spies specifically. My first Greedy Reading List on this topic was Six Books about Brave Female Spies . If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the titles I listed on the recent Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Brave Women During World War II . 01 Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees Rees does an excellent job of taking us through Edith's amateur spy struggle and provides fascinating details of life in Germany at the end of World War II. It's 1945, and Edith Graham is a small-town British schoolteacher who is thrilled to sign on with the British Control Commission to help get schools back up and running for the children in war-torn Germany. Edith has a degree in German (and, more importantly and unbeknownst to her, an old connection to a hunted war criminal), and she's recruited by the Office of Strategic Services. She'll keep her cover by assisting with schools while actually trying to help locate Nazis. The details Rees provides of this confused time in the world are wonderful: the complicated workings of different groups' postwar efforts; the bombed--or jarringly lush and untouched--settings; the creative, sometimes alarming dietary options; and the clothes and fashion. It's clear that she thoroughly researched all of these aspects. I found the author's note about her inspiration for the book's hook and story line really interesting. For my full review, check out Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook . 02 Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams Williams's historical fiction mystery--based on real-life double agents in the Cambridge Spy Ring--is vividly set in Europe and Russia and was a rare five-star read for me. In Beatriz Williams's historical fiction novel Our Woman in Moscow , it's 1948, and Iris Digby, her American diplomat husband Sasha, and their two children have disappeared overnight. Those who knew and worked with them are shocked. Were the Digbys abducted by Soviet agents...or did they make their way by choice behind the Iron Curtain with a suitcase of American secrets to trade? In Williams's historical fiction mystery, which skips back and forth in time, four years later, Iris's twin sister Ruth finally receives a postcard from her estranged sister. Ruth is soon on her way to Russia to try to extricate Iris from danger--but the truth about Iris's marriage and past is more complicated and fraught than Ruth could have imagined. I loved this. Every heart-stopping moment; every exquisite detail; the characters' growth, emotional distance, and unforeseen connections to each other; the trick of teasing out what was actually happening; the characterization; the machinations--all of it. For my full review of this book, please see Our Woman in Moscow . 03 A Murder by Any Name by Suzanne M. Wolfe ​Wolfe's book was a fun, quick read with wonderful Elizabethan-era detail. Many of the characters in A Murder by Any Name were lovely, faulted, and interesting, and the dialogue was great. The character of the brothel madam with a heart of gold has probably been overdone in literature. In this case, Kat wasn’t fully developed as a character so she felt more like a concept than a real person. But Wolfe's book was a fun, quick read that kept me engaged the whole way through. I also enjoyed the second book in this series, A Course of All Treasons . I looove a historical fiction mystery. If you do too, you might want to check out the titles on the Greedy Reading List Six Historical Fiction Mysteries to Intrigue You . For my full review of this title, please see A Murder by Any Name . 04 The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck Robuck shaped the real-life figure of Virginia Hall into a courageous, idealistic, determined, and imperfect heroine I was intrigued by. The Invisible Woman is historical fiction about the real-life World War II-era spy Virginia Hall. Erika Robuck makes Hall appealingly realistic, with faults, desires, idealism, and an astounding baseline level of bravery that leads to realistically messy, sometimes tragic situations--and occasionally glorious victories. Hall, an American working for the UK, was a trainer of the French Resistance despite the physical limitations caused by her prosthetic leg (which she gained following a shooting accident). She's entrenched in enemy territory sending coded messages and drumming up supporters for the cause for longer than most agents manage to survive, so she has a persistent feeling of being on borrowed time. I found the number of typos here distracting, but I really enjoyed Robuck's writing style, the details of the time, the pacing of the book's events, and the rich cast of secondary characters she brought to life. For my full review of this book, check out The Invisible Woman . 05 The Rose Code by Kate Quinn Kate Quinn makes the urgency of World War II code breaking come alive through the stories of three young women and their interconnected destinies in The Rose Code . The Rose Code is a wonderfully spun historical fiction story of three very different women who answer the wartime call to England's top-secret Bletchley Park in order to break the military codes of the Axis powers. The book jumps between 1940, the beginning of the women's forays into their secret duties and responsibilities, and 1947, as the royal wedding of Prince Philip (the former beau of one of our Bletchley ladies) and Princess Elizabeth approaches--a period when one of the Bletchley sisterhood is tucked away in an asylum following a terrible betrayal. Quinn offers plenty of interpersonal conflict, romance, suspected double-crossing, and details of life within both timelines, and in her hands, the descriptions of code-breaking mechanisms and the detailed, complicated, elusive process of figuring out messages were captivating. For my full review of this title, please see The Rose Code . Kate Quinn is the author of The Diamond Eye , The Huntress , The Rose Code , The Briar Club , and The Alice Network , as well as The Phoenix Crown , which she wrote with Janie Chang. 06 Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy by Ben McIntyre ​ Ursula Burton, an unassuming mother and wife, was a legendary real-life spy who evaded capture by China, the Nazis, MI6, and the FBI. She was known by the code name Sonya. ​ The nonfiction Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy is made up of vividly recounted behind-the-scenes peeks at real-life Cold War intrigue from the talented author Ben Macintyre. Ursula Burton lived a quiet life with her children and husband in a small English village. She spoke with a slight accent and kept largely to herself. But Ursula was actually a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer sending and receiving secret wireless signals, managing a network of agents across Europe, and maintaining her rabidly dedicated Communist views. The unassuming-seeming mother and wife was actually a legendary spy who evaded capture by China, the Nazis, MI6, and the FBI. She was known by the code name Sonya. The book explores clashes of ideology; the challenges of a woman pursuing spy work; and general, often brutal sacrifice for the cause. Ursula's husband, portrayed as somewhat of a fool, suffers terribly in a foreign prison for his too-obvious support of the Communist cause. For my full review of this book, please see Agent Sonya . Macintyre also wrote the fantastic Spy and the Traitor , which was one of my Six Favorite Nonfiction Books of the Year the year I read it and which I also listed on the Greedy Reading List Six Compelling Nonfiction Books that Read Like Fiction .

The fifth in Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious young adult mystery series showcases Stevie Bell's instincts, doggedness, and ability to uncover the truth, this time in London while she and her friends visit Stevie's long-distance boyfriend David and investigate a decades-old double murder in a group of Cambridge friends. In the fifth in Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series, skilled amateur high school sleuth Stevie Bell is in denial about her senior-year to-do list. She is overwhelmed about applying to college, and she doesn't have the funds to imagine that next step as a realistic prospect. When she and her friends get an opportunity to visit their former classmate (and Stevie's long-distance boyfriend) David in London, they cook up detailed research plans and immersion in the history and culture so their headmaster will approve the plan. But everything is upended when a decades-old mystery of deaths within a tight circle of Cambridge friends in 1995 seems to be the cause of a new friend's aunt's disappearance--and Stevie may be the only one who can find her. For much of the book, Stevie is in denial about the implications of her senior year and looming future; her friends are planning for college, but Stevie has no funds, no plans, and is paralyzed by the prospect of trying to cobble together options. Her passion is solving mysteries, and, luckily, she finds a satisfying distraction in the form of the unsolved mystery involving David's new British friend's aunt--one of the friends in the group who had two of their number killed after their graduation decades earlier. The mystery's resolution isn't too easy, and Stevie leans on procedure, dogged determination, and her intuitive hunches to force a dangerous confrontation and to offer revelations about who is to blame and why. Stevie relies upon her friends for emotional support and for sleuthing assistance, and I liked the continued focus on the tight, complementary group of friends. But the novel doesn't wrap up Stevie's situation regarding college plans nor her long-distance relationship with David. A cliffhanger leaves her furious with him, betrayed, and at a loss regarding her future yet again. More from Maureen Johnson Maureen Johnson is the author of the six-book Truly Devious young adult mystery series: Truly Devious , The Vanishing Stair , The Hand on the Wall ,   The Box in the Woods , this book, and The Velvet Knife .

Woolever's experiences working for Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are fascinating--and, in the case of Batali, often disturbing. The food-focused writing and restaurant workings are the highlights; the author also recounts the implosion of her personal life, addiction, and extramarital affairs as well as shaping a new normal for herself. Laurie Woolever is fresh from culinary school and realizing that she doesn't want to be a chef when she stumbles into a position as an assistant to Mario Batali at his revered restaurant Babbo. His personality is overbearing, and he is frequently sexist, verbally abusive, groping, petty, and prone to childish power plays. Yet his connections and opportunities allow "Wooly," as he immediately decides to calls her, to coauthor a cookbook with him and to meet various players in the food community, eat ridiculously wonderful food, and learn the workings of a busy kitchen. Woolever also recounts her time as assistant to the kind, passionate Tony Bourdain until the time of his death, and in between accounts of her wild work duties and schedule, she takes the reader through her unrelenting alcohol- and drug-induced hazes, hangovers, regrettable decision-making, extramarital affairs, and doubts about her mothering abilities. Her accidental revealing of her cheating creates a crisis point for her marriage, and she ultimately gets sober, then, later, also stops smoking pot. Her romantic partners often feel manipulative, involve gaslighting, and keep her on edge and unsure of herself. I was most interested in the travel, food-focused writing, eating accounts, and breakneck-speed, often outrageous assistant duties than I was in Woolever's snowballing personal missteps, lies, self-destruction, and, for most of the book, her inability to recognize how dangerous her lifestyle is. I listened to this memoir as an audiobook. Bossy Foodie Memoir Favorites You might also be interested in the books on the Greedy Reading List Six Foodie Memoirs to Whet Your Appetite .

I'm drawn to stories that explore issues around memory. In Ma's science fiction novel, China is the sole global superpower, and citizens' memories are valuable, dangerous, manipulated, and mined. Recollections serve as currency and as fodder for a government seeking to prosecute any subversive citizens. In a future land ruled by the Qin Empire, citizens all wear MindBanks, contraptions that record, monitor, and transfer memories and thoughts. Memories can be manipulated, unacceptable memories can be used as evidence of traitorous intent, and in a squirrelly example of "everything is for sale," those with enough money (Mind Capital) can buy others' memories and own strangers' vivid experiences for themselves. Our unnamed narrator inherits his mother's banned memories, and he enters into her saved collection while realizing he is in extreme danger for merely possessing them. We dip in and out of his perspective and are immersed with him in each of his mother's curated memories. The questioning, human connection, and stubborn hope shown in the recollections feel increasingly subversive and provocative; they collectively take the shape of resistance. The elimination of privacy, the eagerness to prosecute perceived treachery based upon seized memories, the twisting of truth to suit powerful entities' motives, and the government's control over the minds of its people are all chilling prospects. The novel illustrates the bravery of unassuming mothers, the way stories offer hope, and how sharing stories can save us all. I received an audiobook version of this title courtesy of Mariner Books and Libro.fm . More Books about Memory This is Yiming Ma's first book. For other Bossy reviews of books about memory, check out the titles at this link .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading the wonderful Alix E. Harrow's upcoming novel The Everlasting ; I'm listening to Yiming Ma's exploration of a future in which memories are valuable but dangerous, These Memories Do Not Belong to Us ; and I'm listening to Laurie Woolever's foodie memoir centering around being an assistant to Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain, Care and Feeding . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow Sir Una Everlasting was a legendary knight in the kingdom of Dominion, an orphan who rose to greatness and died in service to her queen. Her bravery is the stuff of fables, but her real story is no longer remembered. Centuries after her death, spindly, awkward historian Owen Mallory unearths her story--and becomes inexorably intertwined with the events of Una's life as they occur in the past. If Una and Owen are going to change the way history is remembered--or simply get Owen back to his own timeline--they'll have to work together. I love Alix E. Harrow's writing style and worldbuilding, and I'm loving The Everlasting so far. I received a prepublication version of this title, which is scheduled for publication October 28, courtesy of NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group. Alix E. Harrow is also the author of the wonderful The Once and Future Witches , Starling House , and The Ten Thousand Doors of January , as well as A Spindle Splintered , A Mirror Mended , The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage , and Fractured Fables . 02 These Memories Do Not Belong to Us by Yiming Ma In a future land ruled by the Qin Empire, citizens all wear MindBanks, contraptions that record, monitor, and transfer memories and thoughts. Memories can be manipulated, unacceptable memories can be used as evidence of traitorous intent, and in a squirrelly example of "everything is for sale," those with enough money (Mind Capital) can buy others' memories and immerse themselves in recollections of strangers' vivid experiences. Our unnamed narrator inherits his mother's banned memories, and he enters into her saved collection while realizing he is in extreme danger for merely possessing them. I received an audiobook version of this title courtesy of Mariner Books and Libro.fm. 03 Care and Feeding: A Memoir by Laurie Woolever Laurie Woolever is fresh from culinary school and realizing she doesn't want to be a chef when she stumbles into a position as assistant to Mario Batali at his revered restaurant Babbo. His personality is overbearing, he is frequently sexist, verbally abusive, groping, petty, and prone to childish power plays. Yet his connections and opportunities allow "Wooly," as he immediately decides to calls her, to coauthor a cookbook and meet various players in the food community, eat ridiculously wonderful food, and learn the workings of a busy kitchen. Woolever also recounts her time as assistant to the kind, passionate Tony Bourdain until the time of his death, and in between accounts of her wild work duties and schedule, she takes the reader through her unrelenting alcohol- and drug-induced hazes, hangovers, regrettable extramarital affairs, lies, and doubts about her mothering abilities. I'm listening to this as an audiobook.

Bossy Short Story Love Some of you bookworms have told me in the past that you don't like or at least don't gravitate toward short stories, whether because you want to dig in more deeply over the course of a longer story and book, because you feel like situations in short stories sometimes feel unresolved, or because you feel like the stories can seem disjointed. Sometimes short stories tend toward exploring tragedy, as in many of the luminous collections here and their gorgeous heartbreaks. And the dipping-in-and-out without cleaning up the mess of everyday heartbreak might feel unsatisfying. But sometimes nothing does the reading trick like shorter works--especially when time is tight or when you might have trouble concentrating (for example, during a worldwide pandemic , when I read some of these collections). I especially love an interconnected set of stories that when taken collectively offer the richness of a longer, in-depth story or concepts to reflect upon. Have you read any of these collections? Do you have any favorite short story collections I should read? You might also want to chek out the titles on the Greedy Reading List Six More Short Story Collections I Loved . 01 Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken Whatever you have lost there are more of, just not yours. McCracken is a fantastic writer who highlights odd, strangely beautiful elements in small moments. Each of the nine stories in this collection builds from a loss of some kind. In what feels like careful, deliberate shaping by McCracken and her editor, the early stories felt more bleak to me and the later ones offered a little more hope, or at least acceptance. This was her flaw as a parent, she thought later: she had never truly gotten rid of a single maternal worry. They were all in the closet, with the minuscule footed pajamas and hand-knit baby hats, and every day Laura took them out, unfolded them, tried to put them to use. McCracken is also the author of novels like The Hero of this Book, The Giant's House , Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry , The Souvenir Museum , Niagara Falls All Over Again , and the beautiful, heart-wrenching An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination . 02 The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans The Office of Historical Corrections offers so much to unpack; 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 who shape historical "fact," as well as grief and loss. She beautifully and powerfully illustrates essential, deep truths by tracing moments in her characters' everyday lives. 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. 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. Click here for my full review of The Office of Historical Corrections . 03 Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy His heart felt dangerously full, for the first time in years. That dried-up battered organ, suddenly flush with love. It could kill him. In Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It , Maile Meloy keeps you on your toes as you consider what may lay in wait within the relationships she lays out, and you may not be able to anticipate who's going to have a life-changing revelation (or not), who is just who they say they are, and who isn't at all what they seem. A couple of the eleven stories in Meloy's collection left me wishing for more, but Meloy doesn't leave you hanging, instead drawing you in with the depth of each work. I was surprised by the poignancy in Meloy's stories. Meloy is also the author of Do Not Become Alarmed , Liars and Saints , and A Family Daughter as well as the story collection Half in Love. She also wrote the Apothecary trilogy for young readers. 04 Nothing Gold Can Stay by Ron Rash In Nothing Gold Can Stay , a collection by Ron Rash, the stories take place in different eras, but all are set in North Carolina and in heart-wrenching, tough, gorgeous, hardscrabble Appalachia. The state is as prominent as a character as Rash explores trapped despair, haunting choices, and the beauty of even bleak moments. Rash's writing here is, as always, exquisite, and within these 14 stories, he turns his attention to characters who yearn, regret, and desperately attempt to hide their fragility behind steely exteriors. Rash never relishes laying bare a dirty underbelly; he introduces unexpected depth and layers that inspire a reader to reconsider assumptions and leave room for wonder. North Carolina's Rash (he teaches at Western Carolina University) is also the author of other Appalachia-set books: Serena , The World Made Straight , Burning Bright , Above the Waterfall , The Risen , The Cove , and One Foot in Eden , and The Caretaker , among others. For more reads set in Appalachia, please take a look at the titles at this link . 05 Redeployment by Phil Klay There are two ways to tell the story. Funny or sad. Guys like it funny, with lots of gore and a grin on your face when you get to the end. Girls like it sad, with a thousand-yard stare out to the distance as you gaze upon the horrors of war they can’t quite see. Either way, it’s the same story. In Iraq Marine veteran and Dartmouth grad Phil Klay's National Book Award-winner Redeployment , the author shares short stories about war and the jarring entry into life afterward that read like autobiographical vignettes. This is, as you might expect, difficult subject matter--exploring powerful emotions, troops haunted by decisions and unforeseen dangers, painful adjustments to life after war, and injury and loss. But Klay draws you into his characters' situations too fully for you to want to turn away. For more books set in wartime, please check out the titles at this Bossy link . 06 Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout I love how Strout interlinks characters, backgrounds, and stories so gracefully, yet also allows them to stand on their own. As soon as I finished reading this short story collection from Elizabeth Strout, I wished I’d slowed down and taken notes or could start all over and read it again immediately. The stories feel immediate and real. Strout shines a light on turning points: small but powerful shifts of power or emotion, masterfully illustrating how a moment sends ripples through the day or the broader life of those involved in it—it’s fascinating. Elizabeth Strout is also the author of Olive Kitteridge , Olive, Again , My Name Is Lucy Barton , Lucy by the Sea , Tell Me Everything , and Oh William! For my full review, please see Anything Is Possible .

I loved the dark--and often darkly funny--journey of Cambridge postgraduate magick students Alice and Peter to hell, a quest they undertake because their advisor has died and they really need his recommendations. Also, they each fear they're the one who killed him. ...maybe going on meant believing in what she couldn't possibly know. Maybe if she went on she could find some way to make this pain stop. In Kuang's dark academia fantasy novel Katabasis , Alice Law is a postgraduate student in a ruthlessly competitive analytic magick program at Cambridge. She is intrigued by and also deeply irritated by her academic rival, Peter Murdoch, who seems to be showing her up at every turn in their relentless slog of blood, sweat, and tears. Luckily, recommendations from their selfish, brilliant advisor, Professor Grimes, should set them up for successful careers. But Grimes dies a grisly death while trying to enter the underworld, and Alice and Peter are separately, secretly convinced that they are each the one who killed him. What else is there to do but journey to hell together to try to get him back--and preserve their precious recommendations? Katabasis (a hero's journey to the underworld and back to the land of the living) is a 559-page saga, with repeated references to Dante's Inferno and its circles of hell as Alice and Peter journey through their own eight courts of hell, trying to locate and save Grimes. Some of these circles are somewhat glossed over--and the pacing flagged at times for me as the protagonists passed through court after court--but the eerie, sinister feeling and deadly danger are ever present. The heart of the story is the hesitant, guarded, fraught dynamic between Alice and Peter and their halting vulnerability and growing trust. They revisit past missteps, moral gray areas and regrets, their previously singular focus upon "the work," their mutual deifying of their advisor, and the constant subsuming of their own desires. In hell, tragedy and destruction lie around each bend, and their imminent deaths bring pinpoint focus and clarity to their lives and to Peter and Alice's feelings about each other. Peter, it turns out, struggles greatly with Crohn's disease, and Alice struggles with mental health issues around depression, perfection, and trauma. They have each given up some of their values and what feel like parts of their souls in order to give Grimes what he asked for, and while in hell, the two students begin to recognize and resent the exceedingly great sacrifices they've made. This is a clever, strange, dark, and often darkly funny fantasy. The pacing flagged for me throughout the middle of the story, during the slog through various avenues of hell, and the worldbuilding felt slim and glossed over during some of the many courts of hell. I often felt on the outside of an English class whose texts I hadn't examined in decades, with the novel's many references to Dante's Inferno , Eliot's "The Waste Land," and other literary works. I rolled with these without really feeling able to track them as the basis for much of the logic and structure Kuang establishes for her version of hell, as there seemed no hope that I was going to assess these layered and everchanging foundations in a casual reading. I was, ultimately, here for the character development and redemption, which Kuang provides in satisfying fashion. The bendable, undefined rules of hell (which I didn't understand and which kept being sprung upon the reader) turned out to be quite convenient, and after Peter's disappearance, Alice shines as the sole problem solver, capable of sacrifice and dealmaking. More from this Author R. F. Kuang is also the author of Yellowface , The Poppy War , Babel , The Burning God , and The Dragon Republic . Another book that involves an attempted escape from hell is Leigh Bardugo's Hell Bent .

I like a story driven by a female investigaor of a main protagonist, and in this small-town mystery and tragedy, officer Emmy Clifton comes into her own. The situation quickly becomes dark and twisted, and Slaughter builds tension without red herrings or manipulation. In Karin Slaughter's We Are All Guilty Here , Emmy Clifton is a police officer for whom the job is all in the family--her aging father is the sheriff. It's the Fourth of July, and all hands are on deck with the police for the town's fireworks, crowd control, public nuisances, traffic snarls, and who knows what else. So when Emmy's best friend's teen daughter Madison brushes her off, then shows up, needy and asking for help, Emmy doesn't have time for the drama. But when Madison and her best friend go missing that night, Emmy realizes the girls have been keeping dark secrets and tangling with sinister figures. The sordid back story quickly shows itself to be twisted, preying, and horrifying. Spoiler; the girls aren't brought home safely, and early on the reader becomes aware that they are beyond saving. The only measure of satisfaction will be in Emmy's bringing the killers to justice. Slaughter doesn't rely on red herrings, and she adds in unexpected losses that complicate the truth-finding process. I didn't predict the identity of the bad guy, and while the interconnectedness of those at fault seemed like a little bit of a stretch, like calls to like, and it seems plausible that damaged, sick individuals would be drawn to each other. I love a female officer/investigator driving the search for truth and justice, and Emmy is faulted, clever, learning how to be savvy, and taking on some of the mantle of her father's position. More Slaughter and More Bossy Mysteries I listened to this story as an audiobook. Karin Slaughter is the author of approximately 25 books. For other mysteries I've read and Bossily reviewed, please check out the titles at this link .

This quiet, epistolary novel witnesses the creaky, sometimes difficult shifts and realizations that a septuagenarian achieves around her health, children, past secrets, friendship, romantic relationships, and previously unknown blood relatives near the end of her life. I had in my possession a prepublication version of this book in the spring, but it slipped through the cracks until two friends shared their rave reviews of the title this summer, whereupon I fell in love with the idea of the novel and bought the audiobook on Libro.fm because the Libby list was so long at the library. Just recently I realized that I owned that prepublication edition and began reading, until a third friend strongly suggested I listen to my audiobook version, which I then did. Anyhoo, I feel like this book and I have been circling each other since early May, and I was so delighted as I finally dove into this charming novel. Sybil Van Antwerp has written letters her whole life--letters to dear friends and family, letters of complaint, letters of praise and wonder to authors of books she's loved, and more. She reflects, sorts out her thoughts and makes sense of the events of the world. Now Sybil is in her late 70s, she's set in her ways, she's sometimes out of step and old-fashioned, often grumpy--and she's facing immense changes. We find out early on that she faces the impending loss of her sight, that she is somewhat estranged from her daughter, that deep tragedy has shaped her life and closed off her heart, and that she may be stumbling into information about her biological parents. She's never welcomed change before, but maybe, just maybe, she will be able to shift her perspective and open herself up to some pivotal new experiences in the life she has left. It's lovely to witness Sybil's slowly allowing herself to face the past, addressing difficult issues in the present, and allowing for surprising adventures in her life. The Correspondent offers messy, imperfect characters in often difficult situations, and they find their way through having changed and grown. This was charming and I loved both reading this novel and listening to the audio version of this title. The Correspondent was the right book at the right time for me. I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Crown Publishing. More Epistolary Novels This is Virginia Evans's first novel. I do love a novel in letters. To find Bossy reviews of other books I've read, please check out the titles at this link .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading R. F. Kuang's dark academia novel Katabasis ; I'm reading Virginia Evans's charming epistolary novel The Correspondent ; and I'm listening to Karin Slaughter's mystery We Are All Guilty Here . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Katabasis by R. F. Kuang In Kuang's dark academia fantasy novel, Alice Law is a graduate student in a ruthlessly competitive analytic magick program at Cambridge. She is intrigued and also deeply irritated by her academic rival, Peter Murdoch, who seems to be showing her up at every turn in their relentless slog of blood, sweat, and tears. Luckily, recommendations from their selfish, brilliant advisor, Professor Grimes, should set them up for successful careers. But Grimes dies a grisly death while trying to enter the Underworld, and Alice and Peter are separately, secretly convinced that they are the one who killed him. What else is there to do but journey to the underworld to try to get him back--and preserve their precious recommendations? R. F. Kuang is also the author of Yellowface , The Poppy War , Babel , The Burning God , and The Dragon Republic . 02 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans I had in my possession a prepublication version of this book in the spring, but it slipped through the cracks until two friends shared their rave reviews of the title this summer, whereupon I fell in love with the idea of the novel and bought the audiobook on Libro.fm because the Libby list was so long at the library. Just recently I realized that I owned that prepublication edition and began reading, until a third friend strongly suggested I listen to my audiobook version, which I then did. Anyhoo, I feel like this book and I have been circling each other since early May, and I am so delighted as I finally dive into this charming novel. Sybil Van Antwerp has written letters her whole life--letters to dear friends and family, letters of complaint, letters of praise and wonder to authors of books she's loved, and more. She reflects, sorts out her thoughts and makes sense of the events of the world. Now Sybil is in her late 70s, and she's facing immense changes. She's never welcomed change before, but maybe, just maybe, she will be able to shift her perspective and open herself up to some pivotal new experiences in the life she has left. I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Crown Publishing. 03 We Are All Guilty Here (North Falls #1) by Karin Slaughter In Karin Slaughter's We Are All Guilty Here , Emmy Clifton is a police officer for whom the job is all in the family--her father is the sheriff. It's the Fourth of July, and all hands are on deck for the fireworks, crowd control, public nuisances, traffic snarls, and who knows what else. So when Emmy's best friend's teen daughter Madison brushes her off, then shows up, needy and asking for help, Emmy doesn't have time for the drama. But when Madison and her best friend go missing that night, Emmy realizes the girls have been keeping dark secrets and tangling with sinister figures. I'm listening to this story as an audiobook. Karin Slaughter is the author of approximately 25 books.

Finding Your Next Great Read Librarians are amazing. They welcome everyone who comes through the door, they shepherd visitors through issues and opportunities with technology, suggest community resources for those who might benefit, run story times for littles, host book clubs, maintain pristine stacks (adhering, for now, to the satisfyingly arcane Dewey Decimal System developed in the late 1900s for the nonfiction titles), and, of course, guide patrons in book searches. And that's just scratching the surface of their abilities and the services they provide. Although my to-read list is interminably long, having an endless To Be Read list brings me cozy, safe feelings because I know I will never be paralyzed with worry regarding what I could possibly want to read next. That's why I greedily and continually search for books to add to the list, and the most exciting prospective reads jump the line to must-read-now status. During the early months of the pandemic, I was in the mood for a solid dystopian, postapocalyptic read--although in hindsight that was an interesting impulse for mentally escaping that particular situation. Anyway, I wanted new, fresh ideas for titles in that vein that I might like. And I wanted a trusted recommendation. Then someone, somewhere online (who and where were you, wonderful stranger?) mentioned library programs in which librarians tailor book recommendations to patrons, and I was hooked on the idea. It was going to be magical! Books chosen just for me me me! Programs like my local Charlotte Mecklenburg Library's Find Your Next Read involve answering a few questions about your tolerance for violence, rough language, and adult content; any desired time period for your book; a few titles or authors you've read and liked; a few titles or authors you've read and disliked ; preferred setting (domestic or foreign); and a few other matters. After a few days you receive multiple personalized reading recommendations in an email. Voila! (Note that there is also a Find Your Next Read request form for Young Readers and Teens.) I found this whole process incredibly satisfying. In fact, after remembering how fun it was the last time, I just submitted another request. If you're a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library member--or if your local library system offers a similar feature of personalized recommendations--I hope you'll give it a try! Through Find Your Next Read, a librarian recommended the following books: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers, which I later read and reviewed (it was a winner for me) . Three other titles suggested to me as promising adult and young adult science fiction, fantasy, and dystopian reads were some I had already read and enjoyed, so the recommendations were spot-on: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab, The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey (which I mentioned in the Greedy Reading List Six Fantastic Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels ), and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. The final two recommendations I (still) haven't yet read but plan to: The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1) by John Scalzi and Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman (which I've thought about reading for years but somehow still have not). Have you taken part in a program like this? What did you think? And have you read any of my Book Recommendations from Smarty Librarians? For other science fiction and fantasy books I've read and reviewed, please check out the titles at this link .

I feel compelled to see this series through to its end. The Robin-Strike tension is finally spoken aloud, although not resolved, and the mystery twists to involve personal histories, secrets, and, ultimately, dark, devastatingly horrifying characters. I was hooked for the 31 hours of the audiobook. The Hallmarked Man is the newest in the Cormoran Strike mystery series, and in the story, a dismembered body and Freemason symbols are found in a silver vault. Cormoran and Robin's newest client wants them to figure out whether or not the corpse is the father of her newborn baby. Things are already messy. The silver shop is next to a Freemason's Lodge with a broad reach, law enforcement is trying to keep the agency from succeeding in solving the case, some of their witnesses are tied to Strike's ex-girlfriend Charlotte, and the more suspects they consider, the more nefarious plots they uncover. A new investigator on the team comes from the police and is a known rabble-rouser with her mischievous romantic eye firmly on Strike. As harmful rumors emerge about Cormoran's past dalliances, he must manage interpersonal troubles within the agency and without. And all of this seems to be pushing Robin farther away. Robin seems on the cusp of becoming engaged to her boyfriend, handsome police officer Ryan Murphy, and Cormoran still hasn't told her he's in love with her. Ryan's tenuously connected to the police case that the agency is looking into, but his goals are somewhat at odds with Robin and Strike's. Robin's loyalty is to Strike in this case, and this doesn't help her relationship with Ryan, who is hoping to move in with Robin and marry her. (Robin is left wondering if her hesitation is due to a lack of interest in such commitment, a lack of interest in Murphy, or her underlying interest in Strike.) Cormoran keeps trying to conjure up reasons he and Robin would need to travel somewhere beautiful to investigate, so that he can bare his soul to her. But he is repeatedly thwarted. Regarding the mystery: The dismembered corpse mystery leads to a whole host of even more dark, disturbing crimes and collective mental illness and abuse. The reveal was truly horrifying. But back to the forbidden love. I loved being back in the dysfunctional fold with grumpy Cormoran. Despite his generally unhappy demeanor, frequent painful limp due to not using his cane along with his prosthetic leg, unhealthy eating, nicotine addiction, and love of drinking (he seems to be working on improving some of these), he continues to be a major chick magnet. I don't really understand it, but I'm willing to go along with it. Meanwhile, golden girl Robin is, as always, wonderfully capable, clever, and perfectly imperfect. She's facing some recent personal and physical challenges. And Ryan Murphy is showing some weak points, and every time he does, Strike gets a bigger chance with making inroads with Robin. The book teases around this star-crossed attraction (again), but ultimately the issue is brought up head-on (though not resolved). I listened to this novel as a 31-hour (!) audiobook. I support transgender rights and therefore am uncomfortable with some of views expressed by J. K. Rowling (Robert Galbraith is the pen name she uses for the Cormoran Strike series). This and Other Mystery Series You can click here to check out my reviews of Cormoran Strike books 1 through 4 , book 5 , book 6 , and book 7 . You can also find many other mystery series I've enjoyed here or by searching this site.

I was bogged down by the many prolonged explanations that interrupted the progression of the novel, the slow pacing throughout, the abrupt breaks in action, and the tedious roadblocks that repeatedly halted the momentum of the story. In the first in Leckie's Imperial Radch science fiction trilogy, Breq is AI trapped in a human soldier's body. Breq used to be the AI running an enormous starship with the ability to connect thousands of soldiers serving the Radch, the empire controlling the galaxy. But when the starship blew up, Breq was the only survivor. In scenes from and flashbacks to the past, we see Breq on the ship in the era of its destruction. In the present day, Breq tries to maneuver within a confusing maze of motivations and hidden purpose, where the Radch is using AI to control human "ancillary" soldiers. Breq is on a quiet, insistent course of revenge, intent on killing Anaander Mianaai, the leader who ordered the destruction of her ship. In the past Breq was part of the vast starship's consciousness and now she is forging ahead largely alone in the world, so Breq often seems to feel discombobulated about how many aspects of society work. Leckie's story weaves together disparate timelines and storylines, and much of the repeated tracking back and forth and exploration of minutiae felt disjointed and tedious to me. I never got traction with pacing here. When a character speaks, Leckie repeatedly creates an aside to explain to the reader why the content of that speech was notable, rather than doing the work in a more fluid way or building a case beforehand. It killed momentum and took me out of the moment--and this was a frequent pattern. It cried out for widespread addressing of the issue, and it drove me crazy. I mentioned the quest for revenge above, which seemed promising in terms of potential excitement, but much of Breq's journey toward retribution felt comprised of delays, barriers, and wearying logistical or otherwise uninteresting hindrances. When action occurs, the inserted odd, prolonged asides halt the progression of the story, often taking extensive page time, while the action at hand takes only a moment. An aspect I liked: Breq doesn't see gender and identifies everyone as "she"; while Breq inhabits a female body as its ancillary, its AI is without gender. When Breq must speak in a language that uses gender-specific language, she often misjudges the gender of the creature at hand. But this book was not for me. In fact, beyond the sunk cost fallacy, I can't explain why I continued to read this book, except that I hoped for a dramatic turnaround that would explain the multiple awards it won a decade or so ago. I found the interspersed, long background notes tedious, the pacing far too slow, and not even Breq's desire for revenge could save what for me was a bogged-down, uninteresting, oddly structured, slow march that felt like it would have benefited from a heavy editorial hand. Science Fiction Reads I've Loved Check out the titles at this link (or search on the blog) for lists of science fiction reads I've loved, or for individual titles or aspects ( ragtag space crew, anyone?) that you might like too.

I've loved the other three books I've read by Lily King, but I didn't connect with the Heart the Lover characters and didn't believe in their decades-old deep ties to each other. In the fall of our female narrator's senior year in college, she becomes friends with Sam and Yash, two vibrant young men in her literature class. They are housemates with each other and with another student named Ivan, and together they form a charming, complementary, intellectual trio. They nickname our main protagonist Jordan. Although it likely seems clear to the reader that ultrareligious, mainly abstinent, guilt-ridden, and generally rigid Sam is not a healthy match for Jordan, they fall into a volatile relationship. But Jordan is more entranced by Yash, who acts oddly around other women but seems to be his naturally charming self around her. I was engrossed by the tensions in this love triangle, and by Jordan's early relationship and her immersion in intellectual college student life. Then a significant amount of page time was dedicated to mentions of literature, literary figures, and philosophers, to the point that this all began to feel like distracting filler, rather than developing into relevant story elements. However, the exploration of the concepts of eternalism (the past, present, and future are equally real) and presentism (only the present moment exists) has bearing on Jordan's youthful choices and their (for me, larger than feels warranted) impact on the rest of her life. Jordan's first relationship doesn't work, but the stakes are, appropriately, not extremely high. The next relationship is more passionate, more loving, more complicated, and more promising. When that love interest turns out to have a weak-boy disconnect between his stated intentions and his ability to make a commitment, the stakes are higher, and Jordan's shock at his abruptly flighty behavior is significant. I wanted to throttle these disappointingly flaky early twentysomething boys, and while it wouldn't work for the story, I wanted Jordan to cut them off forever. They can't be counted on, they're incapable of feeling mature feelings or honest communication, enough is enough, ugh. There is a jump forward in time that made me immediately feel less connected to the characters and the years of their stories we weren't privy to , then Jordan has a poignant if largely unsatisfying reconnection with one of the boys (now a grown man), and finally some resolution and a difficult goodbye. While Jordan is sitting at a deathbed and eating with the family and friends of the dying man for multiple days, I was feeling for Jordan's husband, who is home in Maine caring for their gravely ill child and preparing for that child's very serious, hopefully pain-alleviating but possibly life-ending surgery. Time to get home, Jordan! At the very end of the book, the character's name is revealed. This wasn't an aha moment for me--I found the big reveal puzzling and didn't realize that the name was the same as a character in another King novel, Writers & Lovers , published five years ago (I've read 500 to 600 books since then, and she wasn't a titular character, so I felt like it was an ambitious possibility that I would have connected the two too early if the character's name had been used all along. Interestingly, in that book, the main protagonist is a struggling writer who is drawn to two very different men.) I think if I had understood the interconnectedness of the stories up front, I would have felt positively that there were more layers here. As it was, I wanted more depth from the story but didn't feel it. I received a prepublication version of this title, published September 30, courtesy of Grove Atlantic and NetGalley. More from Lily King Lily King is also the author of books I've loved including Five Tuesdays in Winter , Writers & Lovers , and Euphoria .

The Books I'm Reading Now Welcome to my fall-color-themed current reads! I'm reading Lily King's newest novel, set during university years and decades afterward, Heart the Lover ; I'm listening to Ann Leckie's science fiction novel about AI, starships, and revenge, Ancillary Justice ; and I'm listening to Maureen Johnson's young adult mystery novel Nine Liars . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Heart the Lover by Lily King In the fall of our as-yet-unnamed female narrator's senior year in college, she becomes friends with Sam and Yash, two vibrant young men in her literature class. They are housemates with each other and another student named Ivan, and together they form a charming, complementary, intellectual trio. They nickname our main protagonist Jordan. Although it seems clear to the reader that ultrareligious, mainly abstinent, guilt-ridden, and generally rigid Sam is not a healthy match for Jordan, they fall into a volatile relationship. But Jordan is entranced by Yash, who acts oddly around other women but seems to be himself around her. A significant amount of page time is dedicated to mentions of literature, literary figures, and philosophers. There is a jump forward in time that is so far making me feel less connected to the characters . Lily King is also the author of books I've loved including Five Tuesdays in Winter , Writers & Lovers , and Euphoria . I received a prepublication version of this title, published September 30, courtesy of Grove Atlantic and NetGalley. 02 Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) by Ann Leckie In the first in Leckie's science fiction trilogy, Breq is AI trapped in a human soldier's body. Breq used to be the Justice of Toren, the AI running an enormous starship with the ability to connect thousands of soldiers serving the Radch, the empire controlling the galaxy. But when the starship blew up, Breq was the only survivor. Leckie's story weaves together disparate timelines and storylines, and so far much of the tracking back and forth and exploration of minutiae is feeling disjointed and tedious. I hope this doesn't continue to be the case. One interesting aspect of the story is that Breq doesn't see gender and identifies everyone as "she"; while Breq inhabits a female body as its ancillary, its AI is without gender. When Breq must speak in a language that uses gender-specific language, they often misjudge the gender of the creature at hand. 03 Nine Liars (Truly Devious #5) by Maureen Johnson In the fifth in Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series, skilled amateur high school sleuth Stevie Bell is in denial about her senior-year to-do list. She is overwhelmed about applying to college, and she doesn't have the funds to imagine that next step as a realistic prospect. When she and her friends get an opportunity to visit their former classmate (and Stevie's long-distance boyfriend) David in London, they cook up detailed research plans and immersion in the history and culture so their headmaster will approve the plan. But everything is upended when a decades-old mystery seems to be the cause of a new friend's aunt's disappearance--and Stevie may be the only one who can find her. Maureen Johnson is the author of the six-book Truly Devious young adult mystery series: Truly Devious , The Vanishing Stair , The Hand on the Wall , The Box in the Woods , this book, and The Velvet Knife .

Bossy Favorites of the Month Here are my six favorite reads of September, with a strong literary fiction showing--and a couple of other titles. What were some of your favorite reads of September? 01 A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher I loved my first T. Kingfisher read. This was dark, sometimes wryly funny, haunting, and intriguing, and the resolutions to the significant dangers at hand required the messy found-family to employ their collective intelligence, creativity, and teamwork. The knowledge that she was alone and no one could see her—that she could do anything, say anything, think anything and no one would be the wiser—made her feel fierce and wicked and brave. For some reason this was my first T. Kingfisher (this is Ursula Vernon's pen name) read, and I loved this retelling of the Grimm Brothers' story Goose Girl . Young Cordelia is becoming aware of her mother's significant power and reach, and she is terrified senseless. She is made to be magically "obedient" to her mother, and as such she is incapable of warning others about how dangerous her sorceress of a mother is--and how extensive and dastardly her plans are for those around her. The story is sometimes funny, and it's consistently suspenseful and character-driven. I appreciated that resolutions weren't obvious or easy, that friendship and bonds were key, and that some overlooked, unlikely-seeming characters played important roles in the undoing of the evil at hand. Kingfisher's characters love, but they're never swoony. In an extreme version of keeping a stiff upper lip, they sometimes carry on wryly funny conversations, even in the midst of the quite dark forces threatening them. And the found-family element is a favorite of mine; Kingfisher builds this aspect poignantly, messily, and wonderfully. This story felt smart, strange, and intriguing. I can't wait to read more books by this author. I listened to this novel as an audiobook. Kingfisher/Vernon is a prolific author who has published many standalone novels as well as multiple series. For more fantasy novels I've loved, please check out the titles at this link . For my full review of this book please see A Sorceress Comes to Call . 02 Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein Allision Epstein shapes Charles Dickens's greedy criminal mastermind Jacob Fagin into a character with a rich backstory, showing him to be a man shaped by personal and societal circumstances in mid-1800s London and imagining his efforts to teach thievery to his wards as valuable survival instincts that allow for a desperate survival. In Allison Epstein's version of mid-nineteenth-century Dickensian London, the traditional villain of Jacob Fagin acquires a rich backstory. Jacob has been scrabbling for existence since he was a young boy. When his father was murdered as a thief in the Jewish quarter, the family's situation became increasingly desperate. His beloved mother Leah kept her son fed and supplied with books, and she worked relentlessly at menial jobs to keep them afloat--until her own untimely demise from disease. Now Jacob's options for survival are limited, and he begins to train as a pickpocket, soon eclipsing his teacher and the other thieves in the area, beginning to be known as Fagin--and gradually, driven by a measure of empathy, taking in and training young people who are also fighting for a chance in a tough world. I haven't read Oliver Twist  in many years, yet Fagin has remained ingrained in my head as a selfish, greedy, detestable character. Epstein's writing is lovely, and she skillfully evokes details of the place and time, exposes Victorian London's stark class contrasts, and presents the filthy rabbit warren of streets, alleys, and squares flanking the polluted Thames where the band of thieves scrape by, care for each other, sometimes betray one another, and live their complicated lives. Allison Epstein is also the author of A Tip for the Hangman  and Let the Dead Bury the Dead . You might also be interested in these Bossy reads  that are also set in the 1800s. For my full review of this book please see Fagin the Thief . 03 The Fraud by Zadie Smith Smith was inspired by the real-life Victorian England case of a cockney impostor attempting to wrest an inheritance from the nobility, but I was most captivated by the unmarried, aging, complex character of Eliza and how she found unorthodox avenues by which to find fulfillment. In her first historical fiction novel, Smith offers a Victorian England tableau featuring a wonderfully complex female character in Eliza Touchet, the unmarried, aging housekeeper, cousin, and confidante to the terrible but prolific, well-to-do novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. Smith builds a subplot from the real-life, much-publicized case of the Tichborne Claimant, in which Arthur Orton, a cockney butcher, returned from an extended stay in Australia and attempted to lay claim to the Tichborne family fortune, insisting that he was a long-lost noble son much changed by his time away--and with the actual Tichborne heir's former slave as his key witness. But I was far more interested in the character of Eliza and the shape of her life. Her voice and point of view are sometimes testy, often incisive, and at other times diminished--a product of the limitations of single women in that time. I found Eliza irresistible. Zadie Smith is also the author of the novels White Teeth , The Autograph Man , On Beauty , NW , and Swing Time , as well as essays and short stories. For my full review, please check out The Fraud . 04 Buckeye by Patrick Ryan Patrick Ryan's literary fiction traces decades of the messy, poignant lives of two families shaped by uncompromising societal expectations who work to connect across secrets, upended traditional roles, shocking loss, and unanticipated love. In Patrick Ryan's literary fiction title Buckeye , which begins before World War II and spans to the end of the twentieth century, we begin with the story of a young couple in Bonhomie, Ohio, as they meet, fall in love, build a family, and struggle to stay connected. Relationships shift, unlikely ties grow stronger, characters grow apart and find their way back together, and what seemed like indelible relationships fall away as Buckeye  stretches across decades of life, choices, and loss . The unexpected, unorthodox, secret-based links between two families shape the story (with a supporting cast made up of an older generation steeped in habit and old-fashioned values yet poignantly capable of change and growth). The found-family messiness was a highlight of the novel; the caring that emerges due to and among heartbreaking splits is particularly powerful. Patrick Ryan is also the author of The Dream Life of Astronauts , Send Me , and young adult novels. For more family stories you might like, please check out the Bossy reviews at this link . For my full review, please check out Buckeye . 05 What We Can Know by Ian McEwan Ian McEwan's new literary fiction looks back upon our present with a cutting 2119 eye. An enthused future academic and a contemporary poet's put-upon wife trade points of view to illuminate across two timelines a calculated rewriting of history, our brave and hubristic present-day existence, and fictional yet hauntingly plausible dangers. In Ian McEwan's newest novel, we're introduced to characters living in a 2119, post-global-warming, post-nuclear war existence in which the population has been cut by more than half, inland seas spread across the globe, and much of the world's variation, richness, and natural world no longer exist . Within this timeline, Tom Metcalfe, one of our main protagonists, is an academic fascinated by the past (the years surrounding our present day) . In particular, he is obsessed with a famous poet named Blundy's ambitious 2014 poem, the single copy of which was read aloud for the (obtuse, grumpy, belligerent) poet's wife's birthday, then lost to time. Early on, I found the academic focus somewhat tedious, but then the story builds into unexpected, often dark layers. The tone of the book is quiet, shadowy, and reflective, but there are rich, sordid, often unexpected twists beneath the largely academic, intellectual exercises and discussions. Affairs, theft, lies, murder, negligence leading to death, drug-addled decision-making, and terrible mistakes are all essential components of the novel, yet the pacing does not charge along; this is a slow creep through the surface to often-wretched underbellies. Ian McEwan is also the author of Atonement , On Chesil Beach , Saturday , Amsterdam , and other books. Click here   for my full review. 06 The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club #1) by Richard Osman I was delighted by the poignancy, humor, and layers in the first installment of this series of stories about sharp, disparate septuagenarians who meet to resolve cold cases--then aim to solve the mysteries of murders occurring in their own community. In this first installment in Osman's mystery series, the story begins in medias res , as the reader witnesses our key characters--four septuagenarian--coming together for a weekly discussion of unsolved murders. Joyce is their newest member, and the four put their wits to the test to try to resolve cold cases. (They reserve their room as "Jigsaw Club" to discourage others' interest and interruption.) But when a slick local developer associated with their own retirement community is murdered, and other deaths follow, this sharp, funny, grumpy, big-hearted, underestimated group of friends becomes determined to solve the case. Then an event from decades earlier grows in importance and shapes the Club's search for answers . Justice isn't black and white, and motivations matter; the Club isn't set on following the letter of the law, as they appreciate how complicated life can be. I was surprised by how charming, intriguing, layered, and lovely this story was, and I'm eager to read the next installment. Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age is another series about capable, clever older protagonists who use their wits and significant life experience to solve crimes--and, in their case, evade their own murders. You can check out my reviews of the first two titles here  and here . And you can find Bossy reviews of many other mysteries here . For my full review, please check out this link .

Ryan builds a vivid small-town Irish setting with its gloomy, then alarming, descent into corruption. The twenty-one points of view were sometimes difficult for me to unravel, but I appreciated the strength of the characters' bonds and their reversion to deep, long-held loyalties. That was always the way in Ireland, he said. You’d be hung for robbing an apple and made king if you robbed a castle. In Heart, Be at Peace , Donal Ryan shares the story of a small town in Ireland. Everyone is linked, with shared youths and local experiences, conflicts new and old, and deep loyalties. But an economic downturn has created opportunities for the entrance of drugs, violence, greed, and an undermining of the community's bonds, safety, and relationships. Someone will need to stand up to the ruthless thugs ruling the area with fear and corruption in order to preserve their town. The story is told from 21 interconnected points of view, and I had trouble differentiating between the characters and their voices from time to time. I was glad to be able to flip back through the physical book to remind myself of who was who. I could see so much of myself in her that it was frightening at first. I had to force myself to come around to living with the fear, that feeling of being overwhelmed by a terrible mixture of love and worry. The world is a more dangerous place now for a young girl than ever it was before, for all the so-called progress. Ryan moves the reader through some of the simmering resentments borne of close-knit histories, professions, and personal lives, into powerful tests of friendship. The growing, seeping control of bad men over the town seems unlikely to be checked, but a fire for revenge takes hold, and it becomes clear that something big is about to come to a head, and it might end badly for all involved. There is redemption for some characters and their relationships, then a satisfying return to the thick bonds of loyalty for those who call the town home. More Donal Ryan and Irish Stories Donal Ryan is also the author of The Queen of Dirt Island ,  The Spinning Heart ,  Strange Flowers ,  From a Low and Quiet Sea , and other books. For more Bossy reviews of books set in Ireland, please check out the titles at this link .

Novik's novella The Summer War reads like a fable, with unexpected twists and turns; duty, clever evasion, and curses; a strange world full of vengeful creatures; and satisfyingly proud, brave moments for each of our main protagonists. Naomi Novik is one of my very favorite authors, and The Summer War is her recently published novella. The day young Celia's oldest brother Argent left the house in their war-torn homeland, determined to head to battle, he did so with barely a backward glance, and she was furious with her idol. But she didn't know that her enraged curses, uttered in the heat of the moment, carried immense weight. U ntil that moment Celia didn't understand that she held magical powers, nor that in spouting off angry words, she would dooming her brother to a life spent seeking fame for brave acts without the possibility of feeling love. Now Celia must try everything she can to undo the hex she placed on her beloved Argent. The key might lie within the centuries-old war her people have waged against the ruthless summerlings--and the ferocious grudges those mysterious creatures have nurtured against the humans. After Argent deserts the family, Celia makes nice with her often-overlooked, glum, not particularly academic or talented middle brother Roric (whose mother was a lowly traveling performer, and whose own life was preserved in infancy only because he was foretold to be useful to his siblings in the future). Roric and Celia forge a bond, with Celia nurturing his abilities and taking time with him, and Roric thinking through how to achieve success in a hypothetical, shared quest. Despite the legendary dangers awaiting them there and the almost certainly futile idea of ever returning home, the two of them become determined to pass into the Summer Lands to reach Argent and break the curse. Celia is tricked, loses track of Roric, is bound by her own curse and a maddening circular set of unbreakable oaths, and proves herself exceptionally brave. Events go delightfully off the rails and head in unexpected directions, with satisfyingly noble, brave moments for all key characters and a circuitous route to a happy ending. The story dives into the plot with little hesitation (we do have to get going, after all--we only have 144 pages!), and its somewhat spare, streamlined structure made it feel like a fable or fairy tale. I don't read very many novellas, and regarding Novik and her rich world-building, charming supporting characters, and intriguing subplots, it was probably inevitable that I was going to be left wanting more at the conclusion of this short work. But that's due to my greedy reading habits and my active denial throughout reading this that this was always going to be fewer beloved Novik words than I wanted. My Extensive Love for Naomi Novik's Fiction Naomi Novik is the author of richly wrought fantasy novels featuring main protagonists I love: Uprooted  and Spinning Silver  as well as the story collection Buried Deep  and the Scholomance trilogy: A Deadly Education , The Last Graduate , and The Golden Enclaves . Novik has also written the Temeraire series of nine fantastic books about dragons, their riders, their friendships, and their wryly funny interactions. I received a prepublication edition of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Del Rey.

Ian McEwan's new literary fiction looks back upon our present with a cutting 2119 eye. An enthused future academic and a contemporary poet's put-upon wife trade points of view to illuminate across two timelines a calculated rewriting of history, our brave and hubristic present-day existence, and fictional yet hauntingly plausible dangers. In Ian McEwan's newest novel, we're introduced to characters living in a 2119, post-global-warming, post-nuclear war existence in which the population has been cut by more than half, inland seas spread across the globe, and much of the world's variation, richness, and natural world no longer exist. Many reasons have been given for the decline of the climate-change movement in the twenty-first century. I would propose Derangement itself. The planet, with almost 200 jostling nations, was already tense. Within this timeline, Tom Metcalfe, one of our main protagonists, is an academic fascinated by the past (the years surrounding our present day). I treasured the crazy music and fads and troubled movies and serious science, serious history, serious biography. My list was long--the suspension bridges, the orchestras, street parties and a thousand forms of music festivals, and people's gardening and cooking, their need for holidays, extreme sports, historical enactments, gay-pride carnivals, the risks they took with AI, the sense of humour, the safe airplanes, the passion for pointless sports. A hundred thousand at a football match! An astronaut playing golf on the moon! Did she know about the cheese-rolling competitions? In particular, he is obsessed with a famous poet named Blundy's ambitious 2014 poem, the single copy of which was read aloud for the (obtuse, grumpy, belligerent) poet's wife's birthday, then lost to time. I became the biographer of the reputation of an unread poem. Perhaps I was never anything else. Regarding the poem, guests' later, well-documented accounts of the evening agree on the brilliance of Blundy's corona (a poem in which the final line of a stanza is repeated as the first line of the next; in this case, a bloated, fifteen-stanza work). But because each person's mind wandered during the performance--and each person drank copious amounts of alcohol beforehand--for them, the details of the masterpiece are fuzzy. Each of those present harbors a resentment regarding the poet but is tied to him in some way, and this dynamic colors their later reviews of this purported once-in-a-lifetime, vanished work. The corona takes on a mythical quality and morphs to serve as a poignant, powerful climate-change warning. Blundy's wife mildly resents--but is not surprised--that her birthday celebration has become upstaged by her egomaniac husband's much-hyped work, and she realizes that within the corona he has fictionalized an idyllic, nature-focused partnership between them (far from the truth, as he hates the inconvenience of weather and the outdoors); unintentionally negated his own vehement denial of climate change (views he aggressively spouted off that very evening to the uncomfortable gathered guests); and not very cleverly revealed thinly veiled dastardly secrets from their past (which could send them both to prison or result in a death sentence). Tom's future interest in the mysterious, lost corona is part of his overall fascination with the decades before and after the present. In a chilling reflection from the future upon our real-life, current struggle to discern and disseminate the truth amid the trash, manipulation, and lies swirling all around us, Tom, our academic protagonist says: I prefer teaching the post-2015 period...when waves of fantastical or malevolent or silly rumours began to shape the nature not only of politics but of human understanding. Fascinating! It was as if credulous medieval masses had burst through into modernity, rushing into the wrong theatre and onto the wrong stage set. In the stampede, grisly government secrets were spilled, childhoods despoiled, honourable reputations trampled down and loud-mouthed fools elevated. In 2119, to prevent destruction of further information, the world's digital file backups ("everything that ever flowed through the Internet") are kept securely in Nigeria, libraries teeter upon mountaintops, and citizens feel confident that due to "advancements in quantum computing and mathematics" they have unearthed all electronic information from the past, encrypted or not. I’d like to shout down through a hole in the ceiling of time and advise the people of a hundred years ago: If you want your secrets kept, whisper them into the ear of your dearest, most trusted friend. Do not trust the keyboard and screen. If you do, we’ll know everything. But despite advancements in decrypting past secrets, Tom is unable to secure new information about the influential poem, which no one alive has read. Seeing our real-life present through a futuristic eye is jarring and intriguing. Tom and his peers marvel at our excess, our willful march toward global destruction, our exploded population and its range on the earth, our ease of travel, and our unimaginably expansive dry land for walking, farming, and living upon. Early on, I found the academic focus somewhat tedious, but then the story builds into unexpected, often dark layers. The tone of the book is quiet, shadowy, and reflective, but there are rich, sordid, often unexpected twists beneath the largely academic, intellectual exercises and discussions. Written personal histories are shown to be heavily curated, outrageously selective, and powerfully manipulative. The falsified accounts are later painstakingly examined and accepted as truth, so that history is effectively rewritten. The story ultimately unravels messy realities, secrets, and life-and-death stakes in the past as well as complications and surprises in present-day relationships, careers, and considerations of the future. Affairs, theft, lies, murder, negligence leading to death, drug-addled decision-making, and terrible mistakes are all essential components of the novel, yet the pacing does not charge along; this is a slow creep through the surface to often-wretched underbellies. The assessment of our complex current-day messes, soaring successes, sweeping promise, and looming sense of doom is chilling and feels hauntingly pinpointed: They were big and brave, superb scholars and scientists, musicians, actors and athletes, and they were idiots who were throwing it all away, even as their high culture lamented or roared in pain. ...the decades sped by and the Derangement gathered pace, the weapons proliferated and they did little, even as they knew what was coming and what was needed. Such liberty and abandon, such fearful defiance. They were brilliant in their avarice, quarrelsome beyond imagining, ready to die for bad and good ideas alike. After tragedies and disappointments, the novel ultimately shifts to forgiveness, practical adjustments, dispassionate forging ahead, and newly imagined relationships and opportunities. Our main protagonists force or are faced with resolutions, which are not always peaceful or wholly satisfying, but push the characters forward. I was struck by the stacked surprises that became clear in What We Can Know , and I loved realizing the incorrect assumptions I made about certain characters' motivations and capabilities. More from Ian McEwan Ian McEwan is also the author of Atonement , On Chesil Beach , Saturday , Amsterdam , and other books. I received a prepublication version of this title, published September 23, courtesy of Knopf and NetGalley. For more Bossy reviews of literary fiction titles, please check out the posts at this link .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading a small-town Irish story of deep connections and the potential for renegade justice, Heart, Be at Peace ; I'm listening to the 31-hour audiobook of the latest Cormoran Strike mystery, The Hallmarked Man ; and I'm reading Ian McEwan's newest literary fiction novel, which was published last week, What We Can Know . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan In Heart, Be at Peace , Donal Ryan shares the story of a small town in Ireland. Everyone is linked, with shared youths, conflicts, resentments, and loyalties. But an economic downturn has created opportunities for drugs, violence, greed, and an undermining of the community's bonds, safety, and relationships. Someone will need to stand up to the ruthless thugs ruling the area with fear and corruption in order to preserve their town. The story is told from 21 interconnected points of view. Donal Ryan is also the author of The Queen of Dirt Island , The Spinning Heart , Strange Flowers , From a Low and Quiet Sea , and other books. For more Bossy reviews of books set in Ireland, please check out the titles at this link . 02 The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8) by Robert Galbraith I support transgender rights and therefore have squirrelly feelings about some of views expressed by J. K. Rowling (Robert Galbraith is her pen name for the Cormoran Strike series). You can click here to read her opinions in her own words. I'm reading the newest in the Cormoran Strike mystery series, in which a dismembered body and Freemason symbols are found in a silver vault, and Cormoran and Robin's newest client wants them to figure out whether or not the corpse is the father of her newborn baby. The silver shop is next to a Freemason's Lodge with a broad reach, law enforcement is trying to keep the agency from succeeding in solving the case, some of their witnesses are tied to Strike's ex-girlfriend Charlotte, and the more suspects they consider, the more nefarious plots they uncover. Meanwhile, Robin seems on the cusp of becoming engaged to her boyfriend, handsome police officer Ryan Murphy, and Cormoran still hasn't told her he's in love with her. You can click here to check out my reviews of Cormoran Strike books 1 through 4 , book 5 , book 6 , and book 7 . 03 What We Can Know by Ian McEwan In Ian McEwan's newest novel, his characters live in 2119, a post-global-warming existence in which the population has been cut by more than half, inland seas spread across the globe, and much of the world's variation, richness, and natural world no longer exist. Within this setting, one of our main protagonists is an academic fascinated by the past (the years surrounding our present). In particular, he is obsessed with a famous poet's poem, the single version of which was read aloud for the poet's wife's birthday, but then lost to time. The book unravels messy realities, secrets, and life-and-death stakes in the past as well as complications and surprises in present-day relationships, careers, and considerations of the future. Ian McEwan is also the author of Atonement , On Chesil Beach , Saturday , Amsterdam , and other books. I received a prepublication version of this title, published September 23, courtesy of Knopf and NetGalley.

The Second-Chance Stories I love a good second-chance book in which the main character gets the opportunity to go back and try again, redo their life, shift their circumstances, or change the situation around them. It's an irresistible do-over premise for me: a flawed human gets another shot at existing in this unpredictable, problematic, glorious world--and appreciating it more fully while changing their original outcomes. Have you read any of these books? I'd love to hear what you thought! Which other books should I add to my second-chance book list? 01 All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai There are flying cars in the alternate reality of this book. I think you should know that going in, because it’s not the only fantastic thing, but it is one of the fantastic things in Elan Mastai's All Our Wrong Todays . Our main protagonist Tom makes a decision that strands him in our version of the world, which feels like a dystopia to him. He encounters alternate versions of his loved ones and universe, which are jarring, but they grow on him. He strikes out to explore time and place in an effort to figure out which reality to preserve. Mastai provides a fascinating story with time travel, alternate realities, love, loss, humor, bravery, and moments that made me laugh out loud. I didn't always follow the logic as laid out in the book--including the supposed development of time travel itself and how time travelers affect realities--but I loved suspending my disbelief to be part of it. I loved All Our Wrong Todays . 02 The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North “What is the point of me? Either to change a world--many, many worlds, each touched by the choices I make in my life, for every deed a consequence, and in every love and every sorrow truth--or nothing at all.” Harry August has been born (in a train station in 1919) many times. From his second birth on, he is born each time carrying the knowledge from his previous lives, yet nothing seems to change the fact that he will die and begin again. Until his eleventh life, when a young girl arrives at his deathbed. "I nearly missed you, Doctor August," she says. "I need to send a message." Claire North has crafted a fascinating, twisty, thoughtful time-travel story. The first-person perspective drew me deeply into Harry's life. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is often funny, but North layers darkness into her book, as well as fascinating layers of betrayal. This story really hooked me. Side note: Claire North is a pen name for Catherine Webb, a young-adult author who wrote her first book, Mirror Dreams , when she was 14. 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 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. 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. 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. 04 Life After Life by Kate Atkinson Ursula didn't survive her own birth. But during her next go-round, she survived being born--only to die young in an accident. When she lived her next life, she met her demise another way. She often feels buoyed or hindered by a feeling of déjà vu , and occasionally she feels compelled to take another path, rush to check on a loved one, or take some other seemingly odd action, and she can't quite explain why. In Life After Life , Atkinson focuses her literary fiction lens on the character of Ursula, her relationships with members of her family, and details of life during World Wars I and II. This would be a captivating book even without the redoing-life element. But Atkinson's thrusting of Ursula back into her same existence as she shifts her circumstances slightly (with enormous repercussions); opens up her life to be bigger and more fulfilling (and, often longer); and develops inner strength, conviction, and self-assuredness--that's the real magic. I listened to this immersive story about do-overs from Kate Atkinson, Life After Life , at the recommendation of my wise friend Laura. Please click here for my full review of Life After Life . 05 In Five Years by Rebecca Serle Dannie is on the path to achieving her five-year goals in spectacularly efficient fashion. She goes to sleep one evening satisfied--but she wakes up in another life: with a strange apartment, a different boyfriend, and an alternate set of choices behind and before her. And perhaps most confusingly of all, in this second life she's lost some of her original, lifelong, rigid plans for her future, yet she's happy. Very very happy. She returns to her original reality, but Dannie can’t shake the possibilities and uncertainty created by what felt like an actual, temporary shift in her existence. What happened? But more importantly: What does that vastly different set of circumstances and her satisfaction within it mean about how she can and should live her life? Serle's In Five Years totally hit the spot for me, and it also wasn’t exactly what I expected. The setup seems like it’s a romance, but it’s really a story about loyalty and devoted friendship without easy or saw-it-coming resolutions, and not everything is as it seems. I loved it. 06 The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver Lydia had planned to spend the rest of her life with her childhood sweetheart and fiancé, Freddie, in their hometown of Shropshire, England. Now she's coming to terms with the recent and tragic loss of the person she loved and the future she had envisioned. But a medication aimed to help her sleep during this difficult time induces an incredible side effect: when she sleeps after taking it, she exists in a dream world where Freddie is still alive. She can see him, smell him, and touch him. He is unaware that this is a second reality for Lydia and unaware of anything odd about this life, and Lydia must fight to not seem as though she is grieving him--fortunately, this is made easier by how real he seems in this other timeline. Life in this alternate sleep reality continues branching off from the daytime life in which Freddie is gone; her sleeping life involves its own joys, tragedies, and increasingly complicated set of circumstances that show the realistically plausible challenges and crossroads the couple might have faced because of their real-life career tracks, senses of responsibility, and diverging paths toward happiness. Josie Silver's lovely book is heartwarming and doesn't feel overly sentimental or emotionally manipulative. The characters' feelings of anger, crushing grief, and hope feel real in both realities she's created. There's joy, and there's sadness, and there are messy routes toward forgiveness and cautious optimism. For my full review, please see The Two Lives of Lydia Bird .

I was delighted by the poignancy, humor, and layers in the first installment of this series of stories about sharp, disparate septuagenarians who meet to resolve cold cases--then aim to solve the mysteries of murders occurring in their own community. Many years ago, everybody here would wake early because there was much to do and only so many hours in the day. Now they wake early because there is much to do and only so many days left. My sister-in-law was enjoying this book while we were at the beach this summer, which is what finally got me to push the novel to higher up on my unmanageable to-read list. The fifth book in the series is about to be published--and now there's a movie based upon the first book (with an all-star cast of Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, David Tennent, and others). In this first installment in Osman's mystery series, the story begins in medias res , as the reader witnesses our key characters--four septuagenarian--coming together for a weekly discussion of unsolved murders. Joyce is their newest member, and the four put their wits to the test to try to resolve cold cases. (They reserve their room as "Jigsaw Club" to discourage others' interest and interruption.) But when a slick local developer associated with their own retirement community is murdered, and other deaths follow, this sharp, funny, grumpy, big-hearted, underestimated group of friends becomes determined to solve the case. Then an event from decades earlier grows in importance and shapes the Club's search for answers. Osman's experience with television feels evident in his storytelling. Because of the perspectives he offers and the tone of the novel, anyone--even a member of the Club--could be a suspect. He has created a complementary gang of four with disparate personalities, pasts, motivations, and abilities, and each of them feels willing to skirt the law and push their luck. They simultaneously take the local police detectives under their wing, feeding and caring as they can--while politely squeezing out information they can use. “We all have a sob story, but we don't all go around killing people.” Facing mortality is a powerful motivator for considering life and how you want to live it. There's a poignancy here because the main protagonists have lived long enough to lose loved ones, and they know they are in the last era of their own lives. Relationships grow and shift, and some slow-motion demises occur while the story progresses, which adds urgency to the Club's desire to find answers and complete the task of resolving the matters at hand. Justice isn't black and white, and motivations matter; the Club isn't set on following the letter of the law, as they appreciate how complicated life can be. I was surprised by how charming, intriguing, layered, and lovely this story was, and I'm eager to read the next installment. More Aging Amateur Detectives Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age is another series about capable, clever older protagonists who use their wits and significant life experience to solve crimes--and, in their case, evade their own murders. You can check out my reviews of the first two titles here  and here . And you can find Bossy reviews of many other mysteries here .

Smith was inspired by the real-life Victorian England case of a cockney impostor attempting to wrest an inheritance from the nobility, but I was most captivated by the unmarried, aging, complex character of Eliza and how she found unorthodox avenues by which to find fulfillment. What really interested her in it all was the presumption. Of recognition, of respect, of attention itself. Why did he assume such things as his due? Was this what men assumed? My friend John convinced me to read this, my first Zadie Smith novel, and I'm so glad he did. In her first historical fiction novel, Smith offers a Victorian England tableau featuring a wonderfully complex female character in Eliza Touchet, the unmarried, aging housekeeper, cousin, and confidante to the terrible but prolific, well-to-do novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. Smith builds a subplot from the real-life, much-publicized case of the Tichborne Claimant, in which Arthur Orton, a cockney butcher, returned from an extended stay in Australia and attempted to lay claim to the Tichborne family fortune, insisting that he was a long-lost noble son much changed by his time away--and with the actual Tichborne heir's former slave as his key witness. Along with the nation (which in real life was captivated and divided by the case), the novel's disparate characters become obsessed with the court proceedings and whether the man professing to be the heir to a title and fortune might possibly be the actual man after all--or whether the former slave standing up for him has been coerced or convinced of a falsehood. But I was far more interested in the character of Eliza and the shape of her life. Her voice and point of view are sometimes testy, often incisive, and at other times diminished--a product of the limitations of single women in that time. She becomes intent upon advancing racial equality, but is hamstrung by her sex, her financial dependence, and her unmarried state. She plays housekeeper and is a mother figure to her cousin's children--while he behaves as an unencumbered, silly, selfish fool producing work that is only coherent when Eliza is able to edit it into something workable. When she comes into a financial windfall, she dispenses with it in an unorthodox, secret, wonderful fashion that serves to advance her cause for two specific young children of color--a limited but effective measure for a woman with few freedoms and little agency. I found Eliza irresistible. In The Fraud , characters lie to themselves. Men drink and show themselves to be privileged fools. Women pick up the pieces, creatively fashioning avenues in which they may achieve what they wish within the significant confines of Victorian expectations. The title refers to the impostor butcher Arthur Orton, but also applies to the failed, grasping author, Eliza's cousin William. In the story, much of the populace lines up with the pretend heir, against all known facts and likelihood, clamoring for his recognition and wailing about injustices and being wronged by the snobbery of the elite. The situation parallels in haunting fashion with the modern-day rejection by factions of our society of facts, sense, and reality; of negating science and evidence; and of dismissing educated, indispensable, trained experts and their knowledge. More from Zadie Smith Zadie Smith is also the author of the novels White Teeth , The Autograph Man , On Beauty , NW , and Swing Time , as well as essays and short stories.

The Briar Club employs nine points of view to tell the story of life in a female-only boarding house in 1950s, McCarthy-era Washington, D.C., bookended by the story of a mysterious murder in the building. Firebrands ask questions, and a nation where you can’t ask questions is one that is going downhill. In The Briar Club , Kate Quinn turns her considerable talent for bringing history to life by tackling the McCarthy era--in what feels like a very timely novel about free speech, the twisting of truth, and destructive governmental paranoia. This historical fiction novel from Quinn is a departure from much of my favorite Quinn fiction--brave women during wartime, being brilliant, outsmarting the enemy, taking risks, and entering into danger. The Briar Club is bookended by a mysterious murder. In between, and for the bulk of the story, the novel offers the stories of multiple characters in a 1950s females-only Washington, D.C. boardinghouse. They are brought together as not just boarders but friends by new tenant Grace March, who initiates weekly makeshift attic-apartment dinner parties and builds bonds between the disparate women. But none of the women is precisely as she seems on the surface. Some of the characters exhibit feminist views (in the form of birth control and and sexually open minds), as well as inclusive thinking and anti-racism. A lesbian relationship is dangerous, heartfelt, and, ultimately, successfully pursued. Domestic violence is present and plays an essential part in the storyline. At times, it feels a little as though Quinn is ticking every social justice box possible, but I didn't mind it. The ladies exhibit broadening horizons, and over the course of the story, each of the women stretches in some way to challenge herself, rethink assumptions, or consider the world differently. Nora thought of the Bill of Rights, which she saw in its case every day. “The law is not perfect, but it is perfectible. Scorn that and we’re spitting on our foundations.” I didn't love the recipes and their cutesy endings with story-specific conditions that are ideal for their consumption. Nor did I love the house's voice, or the house as a whimsical, yearning character (with somewhat unclear desires). The many points of view added depth to the characters, but at a cost: I felt somewhat jarred by shifting to another perspective just when I was settling into the last one. But I love a found-family story. And Quinn's inspiration for the Grace March storyline is a personal favorite; The Americans  is one of my all-time favorite shows. I read this book for my book club. More from Kate Quinn Kate Quinn is the author of the fantastic titles The Diamond Eye , The Huntress , The Rose Code , and The Alice Network , as well as The Phoenix Crown , which she wrote with Janie Chang. You can find more Bossy historical fiction reviews at this link .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading a favorite author's most recent historical fiction, The Briar Club by Kate Quinn; I'm listening to my first Zadie Smith novel, the Victorian-England-set historical fiction The Fraud ; and I'm reading Richard Osman's charming mystery The Thursday Murder Club . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 The Briar Club by Kate Quinn In The Briar Club , Kate Quinn turns her considerable talent for bringing history to life by tackling the McCarthy era--in what feels like a very timely novel about free speech, the twisting of truth, and destructive governmental paranoia. Quinn's historical fiction offers the stories of multiple women in a females-only Washington, D.C. boardinghouse. They are brought together as not just boarders but friends by new tenant Grace March, who initiates weekly makeshift attic-apartment dinner parties and builds bonds between the disparate characters. But none of the women is precisely as she seems. Kate Quinn is the author of the fantastic titles The Diamond Eye , The Huntress , The Rose Code , and The Alice Network , as well as The Phoenix Crown , which she wrote with Janie Chang. I'm reading this book for my book club. 02 The Fraud by Zadie Smith Last week I wrote about reading my first book by T. Kingfisher, and this week I'm reading my first book by Zadie Smith. In her first historical fiction novel, Smith offers a Victorian England tableau featuring a wonderfully complex female character in Eliza Touchet, the unmarried, aging housekeeper, cousin, and confidante to the terrible but aspiring novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. Smith builds a subplot from the real-life, much-publicized case of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher returned from an extended stay in Australia and attempted to lay claim to the Tichborne family fortune, insisting that he was a long-lost son much changed by his time away--and with the actual Tichborne heir's former slave as his key witness. Smith is also the author of the novels White Teeth , The Autograph Man , On Beauty , NW , and Swing Time , as well as essays and short stories. 03 The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman My sister-in-law was enjoying this book while we were at the beach this summer, which is what finally got me to push the novel to higher up on my to-read list. And now there's a movie based upon the book to enjoy after I finish! In the first installment in Osman's mystery series, four septuagenarians meet each week to discuss unsolved murders and put their wits to the test to try to resolve them. But when a slick local developer associated with their own retirement community is murdered, and other deaths follow, this funny, grumpy, big-hearted, underestimated group of friends becomes determined to solve the case. Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age is another series about older protagonists who use their wits and significant life experience to solve crimes--and, in their case, evade their own murders. You can check out my reviews of the first two titles here and here .

Tough women, secrets and smarts, and sneaky spying! I love a peek at a secret world, and each of these books (all but one are fiction) offers that very thing: a look behind the scenes at spies, deception, danger, and uncovering the truth. I also have another list of titles in this category, and all of the titles on that list but one are fiction as well, although multiple books listed are based on real figures from history: Six More Great Books about Brave Female Spies . If you like stories about brave women during wartime, you might also like the books I listed on the 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: From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists by Tracy Walder with Jessica Anya Blau I love a peek at a secret world, and in the nonfiction work The Unexpected Spy , Tracy Walder offers fascinating glimpses of her life as a CIA and an FBI agent. This is the only nonfiction book on this list. Tracy Walder offers details of her life as a CIA and an FBI agent, including training details, political machinations, and significant and rankling discrimination against her because she was a woman. Walder 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 book, and I would’ve liked it to be twice as long with even more more more detail about all things spy-related. For my full Bossy review of this book, please see The Unexpected Spy . Co-author Jessica Anya Blau is also the author of Mary Jane , Shopgirls , and other books. 02 The Huntress by Kate Quinn 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. This is the first of two Kate Quinn books on this list. 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 . Kate Quinn is also the author of The Diamond Eye , The Huntress , The Rose Code , and The Alice Network as well as The Phoenix Crown and The Briar Club. 03 Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein I am no longer afraid of getting old. Indeed I can't believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and arrogant. But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old. In Elizabeth 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 wasn't a complete surprise, I found it really satisfying. Elizabeth Wein is also the author of many other novels, including additional novels in the Code Name Verity series. 04 The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale is set during World War II. The novel is 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 tale. But this book and I got along like BFFs. The Nightingale offers moments of bravery, scenes of terror, and acts of pure love. I found some moments melodramatic, even considering the naturally fraught wartime setting, but nevertheless I found Hannah's story 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. Kristin Hannah is also the author of many other novels, including The Women . 05 Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin There would be no dressing up as a maid. No cyanide slipped into his crystal glass of mineral water. The Fuhrer’s death was to be a loud, screaming thing. A broadcast of blood over the Reichssender. Wolf by Wolf 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. Yael's goal: to win a ruthless, exclusive annual motorbike race through Axis-controlled lands. The victor of The Axis Tour will be granted an audience with Adolf Hitler at the celebratory Victor's Ball. At that 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 The idea made her sick and scared, but so what? Why did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done anyway? 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 the novel because of how much of the stories of the women’s lives was pulled from first-person records.

Patrick Ryan's literary fiction traces decades of the messy, poignant lives of two families shaped by uncompromising societal expectations who work to connect across secrets, upended traditional roles, shocking loss, and unanticipated love. The wisdom that comes with age was needling, he found, because it brought the clarity of hindsight without the means to change anything. In Patrick Ryan's literary fiction title Buckeye , which begins before World War II and spans to the end of the twentieth century, we begin with the story of a young couple in Bonhomie, Ohio, as they meet, fall in love, build a family, and struggle to stay connected. Young wife Becky Jenkins is fearlessly unconcerned with others' opinions. Since a young age she has been able to contact the dead, and she holds regular seances to help those who are worrying and suffering from loss. Her husband Cal is, disappointingly to him, unable to serve in the war due to congenital factors causing one leg to be shorter than the other. Now he's working at his father-in-law's hardware store and is bewildered about how to live a life worth living, feeling helplessly buoyed along by others' interests and concerns. The day the news of the Allied victory is announced, Margaret Salt enters their lives. Overcome with relief at the radio report, she passionately kisses Cal, a stranger, then strides away. But her general relief turns to fear when she learns that her husband, serving out of harm's way on a cargo ship, might have been a casualty of war after all. But she and Cal feel a link that draws them together and complicates everything. The book's focus shifts significantly to Margaret and her hidden life, tracking back to the origins of her relationship with her husband Felix, to Felix's point of view and pivotal life moments, and then to the intersections of the lives of the two couples. But while significant page time is spent on Margaret's life and the factors that shaped her, she is ultimately unknown even to herself, feeling incapable of deep emotional connection, commitment, or working through messiness. This was unsatisfying to me as a reader but pivotal to the plot. An aspect that is ever-present and essential to the shaping of each of the main characters are the female and male roles in society, family, and marriage in the times in which they lived--and their heartbreaking lack of options when they consider or attempt to depart from the norms or typical roles of the era. Women had the babies, and men, if they felt like it, began to distance themselves the moment they pulled out. Because they had to go to a wife, or to work, or to war, or to that secret place of stoic brooding all men were given the key to at birth. Had any mother ever had the time to stoically brood? Ryan sometimes offers what feel more like lists of historical, societal events than developed factors; these set the stage of time and place and establish some of the outside influences on our characters as years pass. The book's pacing (appropriately, but sometimes painfully) flags for a time as our protagonists spend months and years suffering in their own worlds, trodden down by yet apart from the swirling events around them, feeling they are in stasis, hiding their true selves, and just trying to keep getting up every day. Relationships shift, unlikely ties grow stronger, characters grow apart and find their way back together, and what seemed like indelible relationships fall away as Buckeye  stretches across decades of life, choices, and loss. Forgiveness wasn't so great if you were the forgiver, Becky discovered. Forgiveness was supposed to be the high road, but it was low and bumpy--and long. The unexpected, unorthodox, secret-based links between the two families shape the story (with a supporting cast made up of an older generation steeped in habit and old-fashioned values yet poignantly capable of change and growth). The found-family messiness was a highlight of the novel; the caring that emerges due to and among heartbreaking splits is particularly powerful. Wasn't it a fair measure of a person, what they did with their mistakes? How they managed to stumble into some of the right steps, after taking all the wrong ones? Resolutions aren't always possible, and characters don't magically recreate themselves or invariably meet their full potentials, but Buckeye offers quiet peace after lives lived across eras and in the wake of mistakes, missteps, generous grace, and the gift of others' devotion. I received a prepublication version of this title, which was published September 2, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. More from This Author Patrick Ryan is also the author of The Dream Life of Astronauts, Send Me, and young adult novels. For more family stories you might like, please check out the Bossy reviews at this link .

I loved my first T. Kingfisher read. This was dark, sometimes wryly funny, haunting, and intriguing, and the resolutions to the significant dangers at hand required the messy found-family to employ their collective intelligence, creativity, and teamwork. The knowledge that she was alone and no one could see her—that she could do anything, say anything, think anything and no one would be the wiser—made her feel fierce and wicked and brave. For some reason this was my first T. Kingfisher (this is Ursula Vernon's pen name) read, and I loved this retelling of the Grimm Brothers' story Goose Girl . Cordelia is careful not to upset her mother. It's just the two of them, and in their world, her mother rules. She isn't allowed to close a door between them, nor to disagree with her, nor to have a secret or even a friend of her own. The only creature she trusts is her mother's white horse Falada, to whom she tells all of her private thoughts and darkest feelings. But, she finds, to her heartbreak, even Falada is under her mother's control. When a neighbor in their rural (seemingly English but unspecified) town dies mysteriously, Cordelia's mother insists they leave town in the middle of the night, and she sets her devious sights on bewitching a wealthy squire and sinking her claws into his fortune. Cordelia is becoming aware of her mother's significant power and reach, and she is terrified senseless. She is made to be magically "obedient" to her mother, and as such she is incapable of warning others. But the squire's sharp-eyed spinster sister Hester sees how Cordelia shrinks away from her mother and the intense power that the evil woman seems to wield. Hester and her friends--with Cordelia's help--set out to fend off the woman's murderous intentions. The story is sometimes funny, and it's consistently suspenseful and character-driven. I appreciated that resolutions weren't obvious or easy, that friendship and bonds were key, and that some overlooked, unlikely-seeming characters played key roles in the undoing of the evil at hand. Allusions were made to Cordelia's potential magic, and I suspected that her dramatic abilities would become apparent in the end and allow for sweeping, possibly violent justice for her mother. But the solution to the complex, deadly, previously unfathomable challenges faced by the household of friends and family required clear thinking, trust, and teamwork above all. Kingfisher's characters love, but they're never swoony. In an extreme version of keeping a stiff upper lip, they sometimes carry on wryly funny conversations, even in the midst of the quite dark forces threatening them. And the found-family element is a favorite of mine; Kingfisher builds this aspect poignantly, messily, and wonderfully. This story felt smart, strange, and intriguing. I can't wait to read more books by this author. I listened to this novel as an audiobook. More from this Author Kingfisher/Vernon is a prolific author who has published many standalone novels as well as multiple series. For more fantasy novels I've loved, please check out the titles at this link .

Allision Epstein shapes Charles Dickens's greedy criminal mastermind Jacob Fagin into a character with a rich backstory, showing him to be a man shaped by personal and societal circumstances in mid-1800s London and imagining his efforts to teach thievery to his wards as valuable survival instincts that allow for a desperate survival. Men and women pass by in the street, shadows that avert their gaze and adjust their paths. Maybe they don’t hear him. Maybe they do. Just as his survival depends on hiding his tears until it’s safe to drop them, maybe theirs depends on not taking any grief that isn’t their responsibility. Children have been orphaned before today. More will be orphaned tomorrow. It’s only to him that the pain feels unprecedented. In Allison Epstein's version of mid-nineteenth-century Dickensian London, the traditional villain of Jacob Fagin acquires a rich backstory. Jacob has been scrabbling for existence since he was a young boy. When his father was murdered as a thief in the Jewish quarter, the family's situation became increasingly desperate. His beloved mother Leah kept her son fed and supplied with books, and she worked relentlessly at menial jobs to keep them afloat--until her own untimely demise from disease. Now Jacob's options for survival are limited, and he begins to train as a pickpocket, soon eclipsing his teacher and the other thieves in the area, beginning to be known as Fagin--and gradually, driven by a measure of empathy, taking in and training young people who are also fighting for a chance in a tough world. I haven't read Oliver Twist in many years, yet Fagin has remained ingrained in my head as a selfish, greedy, detestable character. In the Dickens novel, he sings, " In this life, one thing counts / In the bank, large amounts / I'm afraid these don't grow on trees, / You've got to pick-a-pocket or two / You've got to pick-a-pocket or two, boys, / You've got to pick-a-pocket or two." Epstein's textured story imagines what shaped the figure of Fagin into a ringleader of young thieves in that place and time: personal tragedy, societal and class prejudices and limitations, and a strength of will alongside the need to eke out a living. She reworks his gleeful thievery from Dickens's original story, instead showing his emotional connection to other colorful characters living hand-to-mouth in the same slum; his acting through reluctant necessity in training and putting a roof over the heads of young boys who have no other options; and the poverty, strong will, and lack of options that drove him. In Fagin the Thief , Oliver Twist is a minor character (and an irritating, careless, selfish one who might be the undoing of them all). Fagin's motivations and character development inspire empathy for Dickens's traditionally wily, cutthroat, notorious exploiter of young children. Epstein's writing is lovely, and she skillfully evokes details of the place and time, exposes Victorian London's stark class contrasts, and presents the filthy rabbit warren of streets, alleys, and squares flanking the polluted Thames where the band of thieves scrape by, care for each other, sometimes betray one another, and live their complicated lives. More from this Author Allison Epstein is also the author of A Tip for the Hangman and Let the Dead Bury the Dead . You might also be interested in these Bossy reads that are also set in the 1800s.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading a favorite author's upcoming novella, The Summer War by Naomi Novik; I'm listening to my first T. Kingfisher novel, the fantasy story and retelling of the Grimm Brothers' Goose Girl , A Sorceress Comes to Call ; and I'm reading a reimagined, empathy-inspiring story of Dickensian villain Jacob Fagin from Oliver Twist , Fagin the Thief . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 The Summer War by Naomi Novik Naomi Novik is one of my very favorite authors, and I'm excited to read her upcoming novella The Summer War , to be published September 16. The day Celia's brother Argent left the house in their war-torn homeland, she was furious. But she didn't know that her enraged curses, uttered in the heat of the moment, carried immense weight. Celia didn't understand until that moment that she held magical powers, nor that in spouting off angry words, she would dooming her brother to a life spent seeking fame and without the possibility of love. Now she must try everything she can to undo the hex she placed on her beloved Argent. The key might lie within the centuries-old war her people have waged against the summerlings--and the grudges those creatures have nurtured against the humans. Naomi Novik is the author of richly wrought fantasy novels featuring main protagonists I love: Uprooted  and Spinning Silver  as well as the story collection Buried Deep and the Scholomance trilogy: A Deadly Education , The Last Graduate , and The Golden Enclaves . Novik has also written the Temeraire series of nine fantastic books about dragons, their riders, their friendships, and their wryly funny interactions. I received a prepublication edition of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Del Rey. 02 A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher For some reason this is my first T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon's pen name) read, and so far, I love this retelling of the Grimm Brothers' story Goose Girl . Cordelia is careful not to upset her mother. She isn't allowed to close a door between them, nor to disagree with her, nor to have a secret or even a friend of her own. The only creature she trusts is her mother's white horse Falada, to whom she tells all of her private thoughts and darkest feelings. But, she finds, even Falada is under her mother's ultimate control. When a neighbor dies mysteriously, Cordelia's mother insists they leave town in the middle of the night, and she sets her devious sights on bewitching a wealthy squire and sinking her claws into his fortune. But the squire's sharp-eyed spinster sister Hester sees how Cordelia shrinks away from her mother and the intense power she seems to wield. Hester and her friends--with Cordelia's help--set out to fend off the woman's murderous intentions. I'm listening to this novel as an audiobook. Kingfisher/Vernon is a prolific author who has published many standalone novels as well as multiple series. 03 Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein In a reimagined nineteenth-century Dickensian London, young Jacob Fagin has been scrabbling for existence since he was a young boy. When his father was murdered as a thief in the Jewish quarter, the family's situation became increasingly desperate. His beloved mother Leah kept Fagin in books and did what she could to keep them afloat--until her own untimely demise. Now Jacob's options for survival are limited, and he begins to train as a pickpocket, soon eclipsing his teacher and the other thieves in the area--and taking in young people who are also fighting for a chance in a tough world. In Fagin the Thief , Oliver Twist is a minor character, and Fagin's motivations and character development inspire reader empathy for this traditionally wily, cutthroat, notorious villain.

Just a Few of My Many Historical Fiction Favorites These were just a few of my favorite historical fiction reads during Bossy Bookworm's first year in existence. I gave five of these books four stars and rated one of them five stars. But I love historical fiction, and since 2020 I've shared many other lists of historical fiction favorites; you can check them out here . Do you have any all-time (or recent) historical fiction favorites that I should add to my outrageously unmanageable to-read list? 01 Apeirogon: A Novel by Colum McCann Apeirogon builds to show how individuals on opposite sides of the Israel-Palestine wall are at heart the same. The first part of the story felt a little slow for me, but I'm so very glad I stuck with this beautiful, powerful, illuminating, and heart-wrenching book. Apeirogon is structured into 1,001 short segments (this sounds overwhelming, but the book doesn't feel that way) in varied points of view surrounding a Palestinian and an Israeli family on two especially fateful days in their lives. Through the scenes here, we see that those on opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (and opposite sides of the wall) are at heart the same in their pain, their desires, and their love. The story is 480 pages, and ultimately that felt like an appropriate length for settling into the points of view and experiences that are built over a lifetime. The subject matter is weighty and emotional, and McCann manages to make the story both personal and political, which perfectly suits the subject matter. This is a wonderful book, and I love McCann's thoughtful writing. For my full review of this book, please see Apeirogon . McCann is also the author of Thirteen Ways of Looking, Let the Great World Spin , and other books. 02 The Light After the War by Anita Abriel Vera and Edith are such a complementary WWII partnership, and I loved spending time with these strong young friends. I’m dying to know how closely Anita Abriel’s book traces the inspiring events from her mother’s incredible experiences before, during, and after World War II. The author offers a vivid account of the fear and dread—intermixed with sparks of hope—that sustained Vera and Edith in Hungary and Germany during the war; in Naples as they adjusted to post-war floods of food, fashion, and joy; as they found themselves in more settled situations; and during the evolutions of their careers and love lives. Abriel introduces an enormous shift that shakes things up enormously for both young women before the book’s end. I was completely engrossed. For my full review, please see The Light After the War . 03 The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd This story imagines a wife for Jesus, questions gender roles, and offers adventure. This was a fascinating story from the point of view of an imagined wife for Jesus, including an exploration of gender roles, a reimagined faith, the frustrations of societal expectations for women, great adventure, strong female loyalty and friendship, love, and lots of fantastic details of life at the time. Much of the fever pitch of support and hatred for Jesus occurs when the main character of Ana is off having other experiences (and often-dangerous adventures). This is an intriguing structure for the story: Jesus as a supporting cast member. Jesus's role in Ana's story is as a faithful man who disagrees with the politics of the faith at the time. He primarily serves as a character who cares for, understands, and supports the woman he loves. For my full review of this book, please see The Book of Longings . 04 Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland The backdrop for the story of a few summer months in the life of an extended family is Atlantic City just before WWII, with its giant hotels, piers, and general hubbub. This lovely debut from Rachel Beanland starts off with some rough events, and frankly I had a little bit of a time coping with them because I’d already become attached to the characters. There’s an undercurrent of concern about Hitler and his increasingly punitive behavior toward Jewish families’ businesses and emigration in Germany in Florence Adler Swims Forever . I loved watching the book’s events unfold—even if I could predict some of them. Anything that was wrapped up a little too neatly didn’t bother me at all; I was all in and satisfied. Beanland based some of the basic events of her debut novel on her ancestors’ experiences. I found that aspect particularly fascinating. For my full review of this book, please see Florence Adler Swims Forever . 05 Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera Although the three interconnected women faced sometimes staggeringly tragic challenges, Spera injects moments of joy and wonderful details of 1924 life in South Carolina. I worried during the first chapter that Gertrude was going to feel like a caricature of a backwoods Southern woman. But she and the other characters were developed fully. Their sparks of joy are often related to their relationships to each other. You can see where one of the storylines is going before the character involved understands it, and it might make your blood boil to see the evil situation go on unchecked. But the details of cooking, strong women's determination to survive, race relations, and life in 1924 South Carolina were wonderful, and I still think about this book although I read it almost a year ago (technically, at the end of last year). For my full review, please see Call Your Daughter Home . 06 The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue Donoghue immersed me so fully in this world that everything else fell away for me. Years after I first read this book, I still think of it often and fondly. Set in Ireland in 1918, The Pull of the Stars follows a nurse, Julia; a doctor, Kathleen; and a young volunteer, Bridie, over the course of three tumultuous days as the fiery, complex, capable women work desperately to help the patients at their understaffed hospital who are about to give birth while suffering from the devastating new influenza. I was hooked by the moment-by-moment health and emotional crises; the women's determined, sometimes desperately creative attempts to preserve lives; and their occasional triumphs. The rest of the world fell away for me as I was reading, and I couldn't wait to get back to this book. The author of the disturbing, fascinating story Room knows how to craft a tale of survival and of finding hope in the most dire situations. For my full review, please see The Pull of the Stars .

This first installment in the series sets up an overlooked princess who becomes a heroine; deadly monsters who may be being treated unfairly; an enemies-to-lovers romance; and shifting loyalties. The dialogue is often dramaaaatic, but I'm in for the next book. Odessa is the oldest daughter of a king, but she has always felt like a placeholder; her father has always focused on vigorously teaching and training her younger sister May as his heir. You might predict that Odessa will be the unlikely heroine of this story when you find out that she has red hair . This character is not going to go along with the plans set out for her, everyone! (Her hair is dyed brown, and Odessa is given only gray clothing to wear by her stepmother, although she doesn't seem to have ever fought this obvious move to keep her in the background.) But wait! When a prince from another region arrives and demands a bride price for protecting the land that Odessa's family rules--and specifies that only Odessa will do--what she understood to be her destiny is upended. Her father frantically demands that she spy, steal, cheat, and lie in her marriage in order to protect her homeland. But the only ones who have ever shown her loyalty or respected her abilities are her unlikely new family and friends. Is she beholden to her origins or to her future? Dear reader, she is going to end up being brave, and finding love, and and Doing the Right Thing. I knew all of this was coming, but I didn't mind it. I did, however, grow weary of Dess's repeated rhetorical questions and revisiting of the same issues over and over, neither of which felt like it moved the plot forward. The dialogue is sometimes dramaaaaatic, but generally the pacing rolled right along in this one. This first romantasy in Perry's planned trilogy offers monsters, royalty, secrets, hidden identities, battle training, some oddly modern-seeming profanity, and, abruptly, some steamy scenes. The swearing felt modern, but the setting felt more medieval. Odessa questions the ethical treatment of (and killing of) the seasonally attacking and deadly monsters in the story, as they seem infected by a negligently manmade disease. A love interest is also affected by a condition he cannot control, so watch out, Odessa! This is all important in setting up book two. Startlingly, we hear (briefly) from the Guardian's point of view at the end of the book. I listened to this as a TWENTY-HOUR audiobook. Devney Perry is also the author of forty romance novels. More Books Like This I'm iffy on "romantasy," but for other books I've read along these lines, please check out this link .

I shuddered as I read (during daylight hours only) Caroline Fraser's painstaking accounts of the shockingly numerous serial killers who emerged from the Pacific Northwest and the proposal that extensive heavy metal industrial pollution in the region contributed to their flawed development, horrifying impulses, and killing sprees. File my reading of this nonfiction book under Why Didn't I Listen to My Inner Voice...and Not Read This? I was intrigued by the environmental factors Fraser tied to developmental disruptions and the emergence of a large number of eventual serial killers in heavily polluted portions of the Pacific Northwest. I was overly ambitious and thought I could handle any nonfiction book topic. I lied to myself about how much horrifying material I could stomach--and how much more disturbing I would find it because the content is all exhaustively researched and true . I forgot that getting frightened when I read at night disrupts my sleep. I didn't think about how I don't actually like to take in extensive information about murder and psychopaths. "I mean, there are so many people," [Ted Bundy] reasoned. "It shouldn't be a problem." Anyhoo! In Murderland , Caroline Fraser puts forth a fascinating link (she's not the first to do so, but her painstakingly detailed account offers a cohesive, extensive argument) between the numerous mass-murderers who took shape in the 1970s and 1980s and grew up to terrorize the Pacific Northwest--and, in some cases, other areas of the country--and an era in which devastating amounts of toxic pollutants were pumped into the air, water, and soil there. In the humble pages of pulp magazines, Ann Rule is cataloging a tide of inconceivable deviance. One thing she never asks herself is, Why here? Why now? Many horrors play a role in warping these tortured souls, but what happens if we add a light dusting from the periodic table on top of all that trauma? Children exposed to lead in utero or during their first years of life might display a dizzying array of symptoms...some are impulsive, some violent.... "If you listen to parents with lead-poisoned kids, they tell you that the biggest thing is that the kids' behavior changes--they become dangerous." Fraser grew up in the Pacific Northwest with firsthand memories of arsenic, lead, and copper contamination: far-flung poisonous airborne particles, large-scale toxic waste dumped into bodies of water, long-term industry denials, and, eventually, dire warnings about safety hazards. In 1974, researchers determined that just one source of heavy-metal pollution, the Ruston smelter, pumped 25 pounds of lead dust and 58 pounds of arsenic into the air every hour . In Murderland , we learn that "the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports  for 1974 reveals that crime in Washington state [was] up 29.2 percent, nearly three times the national average." In Tacoma, where Ted Bundy grew up, where Gary Ridgway (the Green River Killer) lived, and where Charles Manson was imprisoned for five years before starting his Family and embarking on his killing spree, murder was up 62% . Fraser's detailed accounts march through mindboggling horrors, tracking all of the relevant known actions of killers like Ted Bundy--their public selves and private proclivities; their secrets, lies, and base drives to hurt and destroy; and their rapes, dismemberments, torture, terrorizing, murders, and body disposals. Murderland focuses on Ted Bundy and other serial killers of his era (for example, the I-5 Killer, the Green River Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, John Wayne Gacy, and the B.T.K. [Bind, Torture, Kill] murderer in Wichita --some of whom grew up in polluted areas of the country other than the Pacific Northwest). Fraser notes that serial killers in the US grew from 40 in the 1940s to 300 or more in the 1980s. But Fraser takes time for significant asides, giving the book somewhat of a jumpy feel--not inappropriate to the fear-inducing topic at hand, after all. She repeatedly checks in on years of multiple violent vehicular deaths due to a negligently designed and maintained floating bridge connecting Seattle to Fraser's childhood home on Mercer Island, and she traces pivotal moments in her childhood living with a violent, oppressive Christian Scientist father--as well as her seemingly fervent and earnest wish that she had killed him when she had the chance, before he inflicted more cruelties and abuse in later years. Murderland doesn't address the question of why certain (few, in the scheme of things, although even one is too many) people exposed to heavy metals and toxic waste would become remorseless, insatiable murderers and why so many millions of others with the same environmental exposures would not--nor why serial killers emerge from areas where such pollution is not evident. I could have been satisfied with a long Atlantic -style article on these topics, but Fraser's writing is lovely and her turns of phrase are insightful and often poetic, which helped me continue reading the difficult material and atrocities here. More Nonfiction Reads--and More by Caroline Fraser Carolina Fraser is also the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder . For nonfiction reads I've loved, check out the titles at this link .

The first book in Hodgson's trilogy is smart, mysterious, charming, and layered. I loved the dark academia setting; the brilliant, socially awkward, unlikely heroine Neema; and the strange elements, such as talking, opinionated, sensitive ravens that are not only linked to Neema but a part of her. It is one thing to admit to being feared, or hated. Quite another to admit that you are unloved, and lonely, and that it is taking all your strength to hide it. Neema Kraa has been keeping busy as High Scholar in the land of Orrun, and her focus hasn't been on making friends. The imperious genius is eager to preserve the peace that has reigned for twenty-four years--but forces that she doesn't yet understand are tearing apart the kingdom. A representative from each of the seven regions must compete to replace their ruler, who is about to step down. The ruthless young competitors are warriors and strategists who have been cultivating the skills and cunning for this their whole lives. And after a series of unlikely, unfortunate events, bookworm Neema becomes one of them--the least threatening, as she is clearly doomed to fail the dangerous challenges and battles and probably won't survive the ordeal. Neema can never resist pointing out when others are wrong; she is a social outcast with an active, petty, powerful nemesis, and she only has an estranged childhood friend to lean on. Yet her dogged determination and brilliant insights eventually earn her other competitors' grudging respect. As nefarious plotting and crimes are uncovered and the stakes of the competition become ever heightened, characters must forge previously unthinkable loyalties and use every bit of knowledge and craftiness at their disposal in order to survive. “We are here, exactly where we should be, at exactly the right moment, because we are the Raven, and we are magnificent.” The Raven Scholar  is smart, charming, and wonderfully weird. I love the headstrong, unyielding, unlikely-heroine Neema and the dark-academia elements. There are magical, talking ravens with deep ties (!) to Neema and to the plot, and they become a mysterious, mischievous, sometimes sulking, often confusing, element that she must figure out. How is she linked to them? Is their insight trustworthy? Should she listen to their cutthroat instincts? There is a romantic element, but this is, happily for me, a richly built fantasy and not a romantasy. The romance is lovely, poignant, and just enough. Not everything is as it seems, and only clever Neema seems capable of unraveling the layers that make up the complex wrongdoings and destructive facades that are fooling everyone else. I listened to this novel as an audiobook. More from this Author--and More Fantasy Novels I've Loved Antonia Hodgson is also the author of the Thomas Hawkins series and other books. You might also be interested in other fantasy books I've read and reviewed .

The Books I'm Reading Now Please don't ever let me read such disturbing nonfiction again--I'm reading Caroline Fraser's fascinating and exhaustively researched Murderland ; I'm also listening to the first in Antonia Hodgson's smart, charming, intricately plotted fantasy series, The Raven Scholar ; and I'm listening to the first in Devney Perry's romantasy series, Shield of Sparrows . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser File my reading of this nonfiction book under Why Didn't I Listen to My Inner Voice...and Not Read This? I was intrigued by the environmental factors Fraser tied to developmental disruptions and the creation of eventual serial killers. I was overly ambitious and thought I could handle any nonfiction book topic. I lied to myself about how much horrifying material I could stomach--and how much more disturbing I would find it because the content is all exhaustively researched and true . I forgot that getting frightened when I read at night disrupts my sleep. I didn't think about how I don't actually like to take in extensive information about murder and psychopaths. Anyhoo, Caroline Fraser puts forth a fascinating link (she's not the first to do so, but her painstakingly detailed account offers a cohesive argument) between the numerous atrocious mass-murderers who grew up to terrorize the Pacific Northwest and an era in which devastating amounts of toxic pollutants were pumped into the air, water, and soil in that region. If I never sleep again, it will be because I read the entirety of this book. 02 The Raven Scholar: Eternal Path Trilogy #1 Neema Kraa has been keeping busy as High Scholar in the land of Orrun, and her focus hasn't been on making friends. The imperious genius is desperate to preserve the peace that has reigned for twenty-four years--but forces she doesn't yet understand are tearing apart the kingdom. A representative from each of the seven regions must compete to replace their ruler, who is about to step down. The ruthless young competitors are warriors and strategists who have been cultivating the skills and cunning for this their whole lives. And after a series of unlikely, unfortunate events, bookworm Neema becomes one of them--the least threatening, as she is clearly doomed to fail and probably won't survive the ordeal. Neema can never resist pointing out when others are wrong; she is a social outcast with only a childhood friend (and sometimes nemesis) to lean on, yet her dogged determination and brilliant insights eventually earn her others' grudging respect. As nefarious plotting and crimes are uncovered and the stakes of the competition become ever heightened, characters must forge previously unthinkable loyalties and use every bit of knowledge and craftiness at their disposal in order to survive. The Raven Scholar  is smart, charming, and wonderfully weird. I love the character of Neema. There are magical, talking ravens with ties to Neema and to the plot. There is a romantic element, but this is, happily for me, a richly built fantasy and not a romantasy. I'm listening to this novel as an audiobook. 03 Shield of Sparrows (Shield of Sparrows #1) by Devney Perry Odessa is the oldest daughter of a king, but she has always felt like a placeholder; her father has focused on vigorously teaching and training her younger sister May as his heir. But when a prince from another region arrives and demands a bride price for protecting the land Odessa's family rules--and specifies that only Odessa will do--what she understood to be her destiny is upended. Her father frantically demands that she spy, steal, cheat, and lie in her marriage in order to protect her homeland. But the only ones who have shown her loyalty or respected her abilities are her unlikely new family and friends. Is she beholden to her origins or to her future? This first romantasy in Perry's planned trilogy offers monsters, royalty, secrets, hidden identities, battle training, some oddly modern-seeming profanity, and, abruptly, some steamy scenes. I'm listening to this as a TWENTY-HOUR audiobook. Devney Perry is also the author of forty romance novels.

Do you love witchy books? I love a good witch-focused book. Magic, intrigue, strong women, defiance of societal rules; yes to all of this. Here are the six titles that made up my very first Greedy Reading List on this theme. You might also like the witchy books on these lists: Six More Wonderfully Witchy Stories to Charm You Another Six Wonderfully Witchy Stories to Charm You And 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 , plus you can check out magic in all kinds of Bossy reads by taking a look at these Bossy reviews . Which witchy books are your favorites? 01 The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow I was especially taken with the sisters' complicated relationships and with the link Harrow draws between witching and the women's suffrage movement. 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 other 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, 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, or the blockbuster movie version of the story)--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. I'll go ahead and unapologetically be a traitor to all "the book is better than the movie" readers by professing that the musical made me cry, and the movie (part one!) was epic. In both cases, the music and songs added depth to the story and made it even more rich. 04 Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin 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. 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.) 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.

I loved the twist, double-twist of my first Cavanagh mystery, and the story's revenge and renegade justice are layered with unexpected circumstances. I was hooked. In Steve Cavanagh's twisty mystery Kill for Me, Kill for You , two strangers, women bearing the brunt of two different violent tragedies--and struggling with a lack of justice for those responsible--make a Strangers on a Train -type of deal: If you kill the man responsible for my loss, I'll kill the one responsible for yours. Because the women aren't linked outside of an anonymous grief support group, and because their friendship is unknown to anyone but themselves, they should be safe from detection. But the situation is far more complicated than it seems. Ruth, a young married woman living elsewhere in the city, is brutally attacked in her own home--and the intruder, who has piercing blue eyes but remains unidentified, is on the loose as Ruth reels from disastrous repercussions and mental illness. The ruthless trajectories toward revenge are simultaneously disturbing and satisfying, but the circumstances around the efforts to bring the guilty to justice are layered and shocking in their reveals. The intersection of the novel's victims who are bent on justice is unexpected and fascinating. Characters aren't who they seem, and there's a twist, double twist aspect that I loved. This is the first mystery I've read by Steve Cavanagh. I don't love the title--although it does indicate the dynamic--but I was hooked on the story. More Mystery Novels You might also want to check out my Bossy reviews of other mysteries .

I liked the unlikely modern-day friendship and depth of connection, and I love a best-friend story, but the past timeline and immense, ongoing influence of the decades-old, early-teen friendship didn't hold significant emotional power for me. I really liked Fredrik Backman's gentle, funny, lovely novel A Man Called Ove . Based on a collective love for that title, my book club dug into his novel Beartown --and there was a dramatic split between those who loved that story and those who did not. I found it incredibly frustrating, overly dramatic, and somewhat facile, and after reading it I took a break from Backman books. But I was intrigued by the premise of My Friends , his most recent work, and some reader friends urged me to give him another try. In the novel we follow young Louisa, an aspiring artist, and her inspiration, a dying artist with an extensive backstory centering around a group of dedicated friends and a pivotal summer in their early teens. The book repeatedly tracks back in time to that summer that changed everything, and it alternates peeks into the past with present-day events and an unlikely modern-day friendship that comes out of painful loss. At the center of the story is a work of art, and in repeated trips back in time, we see the friends' various painful young adulthoods and the inspiration for the painting. I felt that some of the potential power of the youthful scenes was diminished by the fact that they are presented in visits to the past, with private jokes that made me feel a little bit like an outsider and group catchphrases that felt self-consciously invented to serve as shorthand for best-friendship. The youthful experiences are repeatedly said to be life-changing, and the impact of them is largely summarized in the present. The immensity of this short period in the characters' early teenhood is repeatedly purported to have ongoing and life-changing power. The current-day storyline is largely focused upon a clumsy, heartwarming, lovely coming-together of opposites: unexpected friends who need each other and who quickly become as close as family. Watching this relationship develop gave it power and made it hit home for me in a way that the revisited moments from decades earlier did not. Louisa, who has just turned eighteen, has had her own significant difficulties and loss, and while she is naïve  in many ways, she is necessarily jaded in others. She has struggled to stay safe in foster homes and has existed with significant uncertainty for many years. This added to my feeling that the extreme emotional turmoil Louisa experiences as she hears the years-old story of the young friends felt overwrought to me. While she might empathetically feed into the depth of feeling described to her and suffered by her artistic idol, I was surprised by--and distracted by--the sobbing episodes she enters into during the story's low points. As a young artist, it is charming that Louisa is deeply affected by the power of the artwork that was made decades earlier and the circumstances around its creation. Is it plausible that she is really one of the only ones in the world who seems to notice that there are figures in the painting and not simply water? Is it cute or is it overreaching to allow her to have the innate sense that the often-overlooked figures were, specifically, laughing at one of their farts (which turns out to be the case)? I enjoy heartwarming, inexplicable connections and spot-on intuition, but in My Friends , overly convenient instances like these felt unnecessary and irritatingly unlikely. More Stories about Best Friends You might want to check out these other Bossy reviews of stories about best friends .

I love the way Fortune builds a summer tableau, but the reasoning for this forbidden love didn't hold up for me, and I was frustrated by a main character's unwillingness to explain the crisis that draws all the characters together. I thought reading a second Carley Fortune novel might be a nice way to close out the summer, so I went back to her 2024 release, This Summer Will Be Different . Lucy is a twentysomething from Toronto vacationing in Prince Edward Island and awaiting her best friend Bridget's arrival when she meets Felix, a gorgeous guy serving up oysters at a local restaurant. But due to various convenient gaps in knowledge on both their parts (confusion about arrival dates, the consistent use of nicknames, and a lack of recent family photos on display on the island and in the city), Felix doesn't realize that Lucy is Bridget's best friend, and Lucy doesn't realize that Felix is Bridget's brother. And one of Bridget's most important rules was that Lucy not fall in love with her brother. I love the way Fortune sets a summer tableau, and I really enjoyed the references to Anne of Green Gables in this Prince Edward Island setting. I like a forbidden-romance setup, but in this instance I was annoyed that Bridget would set up such a bossy rule.--and that Lucy would unquestioningly adhere to it for years. Bridget's former best friend and Felix were serious and broke up, after which the girls lost their friendship. But for twentysomethings this unilateral rule-setting by Bridget felt oppressively controlling and childish. I also took significant issue with Bridget's histrionics in urgently demanding that Lucy come to PEI from her busy business-owner schedule in Toronto, last-minute and with zero explanation. I had the ungenerous thought that this character had better be dying to call in her chips like this. Bridget's reveal of the situation and her emotional turmoil is repeatedly, excruciatingly delayed, but when the facts are made clear, her vague selfishness and refusal to disclose her issues for so long do not feel in any way justified. The friends are lovingly dedicated to each other, but their sobbing, dramatic dependence on each other, and long, tear-filled toasts to each other all came off as somewhat over the top to me. I did enjoy Felix as a love interest, but I didn't think he was given his due in terms of character development. I listened to an audiobook version of this title. More Romantic Reads Carley Fortune is also the author of Meet Me at the Lake , Every Summer After , and One Golden Summer . You might also like my Bossy reviews of these romantic novels .

Gary Shteyngart's story of an uncommonly intelligent fifth-grader, Vera, allows for a precocious child's point of view and observations that are delightfully spot-on and insightful. This is zany, heartwarming, often funny, and just lovely. Through precocious fifth-grader Vera's point of view in Vera, or Faith , we get to know her family, the Bradford-Shmulkins, and its various dynamics. The family lives in New York City, and Vera's parents, Anne Mom (her stepmother, a stay-at-home-mom at times derogatorily called Trad Wife) and Daddy (a culturally Russian, self-aggrandizing magazine editor and sometimes-writer), struggle to cope with financial pressures and relationship issues, while young Vera tries to simply make a friend at school and find her biological mother--while avoiding her annoying little brother's roughhousing and meathead games. We can see that Vera's father is often insufferable; he's a disappointing parent, an unreliable partner, emotionally childish, professionally insecure, and arrogant in manner. Yet Vera idolizes him for much of the book, until she comes to some sober realizations. There were a lot of tourists on the old elevated railroad and Daddy would surely hate most of them for not recognizing that he was special. Vera (which means "faith" in Russian) often can't turn off her mind and can't help a spray of thoughts from escaping; she realizes that incessant chattering is not considered cool in fifth grade, so in a heartbreaking attempt to control her output she often spends time alone in the bathroom during recess rather than potentially spouting off-putting amounts of information to her peers. Her main friend seems to be her talking chess game, who was made in Korea so understands some of Vera's fascination with her absent and unknown Korean-born mother. But when Vera is assigned an intriguing, intelligent new student from Japan as a debate partner, the duo falls into a promising friendship in which Vera can be her true self. She is caught between young childhood and young womanhood, and her vocabulary is growing exponentially, although she's not always certain of proper use or context. Many of the key elements of her observations are placed in quotation marks, and this is a very funny, endearing element. Her sometimes-hesitant takes on the family and world around her are often delightfully spot-on, and she sees many layers whose import she doesn't fully understand. "Enjoy the simulacrum of actual learning," Stella the Car said as the deposited them in front of the school. The story is placed sometime in the future, with a self-driving car, Stella, who speaks to the family (often hilariously taking on Anne Mom's exasperated manner and messaging), and with intrusive testing for women regarding fertility and stringent border checks for human trafficking. But these elements are in the background; the real story is Vera's finding her way while feeling lost between cultures, parents, ages, and without a cemented identity. It's wonderful to witness her conviction and how she eventually begins to fully realize her full, true self. This was wryly funny, sometimes zany, and so very heartwarming. More from Shteyngart Gary Shteyngart is also the author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook , Absurdistan , Super Sad True Love Story , and other novels. I received a prepublication edition of this title, which was published July 8, courtesy of Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley.

The Books I'm Reading Now After a long Fredrik Backman hiatus (after reading Beartown I swore off this author for an extended period), I'm reading his newest novel, My Friends ; I'm reading and loving Patrick Ryan's upcoming (to be published tomorrow) literary fiction, Buckeye ; and I'm listening to Carley Fortune's romantic novel This Summer Will Be Different . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 My Friends by Fredrik Backman I really liked Fredrik Backman's gentle, funny, lovely novel A Man Called Ove . Based on a collective love for that title, my book club dug into his novel Beartown --and there was a dramatic split between those who loved that story and those who did not. I found it incredibly frustrating, overly dramatic, and somewhat facile, and I took a break from Backman books. But I was intrigued by the premise of My Friends , his most recent work, and some reader friends urged me to give him another try. In the novel we follow young Louisa, an aspiring artist, and her inspiration, a dying artist with an extensive backstory centering around a group of dedicated friends and a pivotal summer in their early teens. The book tracks back in time to that summer that changed everything, and it alternates peeks into the past with present-day events and an unlikely modern-day friendship that comes out of a painful loss. 02 Buckeye by Patrick Ryan In Patrick Ryan's upcoming literary fiction title Buckeye , set during and after World War II, we follow the story of a young couple in Bonhomie, Ohio, as they meet, fall in love, build a family, and struggle to stay connected. Young wife Becky Jenkins is fearlessly unconcerned with others' opinions. Since a young age she has been able to contact the dead, and she holds regular seances to help those who are worrying and suffering from loss. Her husband Cal is unable to serve in the war due to congenital factors causing one leg to be shorter than the other. Now he's working at his father-in-law's hardware store and is bewildered about how to live a life worth living, feeling helplessly buoyed along by others' interests and concerns. They day the news of the Allied victory is announced, Margaret Salt enters their lives. Overcome with relief at the radio report, she passionately kisses Cal, a stranger, then strides away. But her general relief turns to fear when she learns that her husband, serving out of harm's way on a cargo ship, might have been a casualty of war after all. I received a prepublication version of this title, to be published September 2, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. 03 This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune I thought reading a second Carley Fortune novel might be a nice way to close out the summer, so I went back to her 2024 release, This Summer Will Be Different . Lucy is a twentysomething from Toronto vacationing in Prince Edward Island and awaiting her best friend Bridget's arrival when she meets Felix, a gorgeous guy serving up oysters at a local restaurant. But due to various convenient gaps in knowledge on both their parts (confusion about arrival dates, the consistent use of nicknames, and a lack of recent family photos on display on the island and in the city), Felix doesn't realize that Lucy is Bridget's best friend, and Lucy doesn't realize that Felix is Bridget's brother. And one of Bridget's most important rules was that Lucy not fall in love with her brother. I'm listening to an audiobook version of this title. Carley Fortune is also the author of Meet Me at the Lake , Every Summer After , and One Golden Summer .

Bossy Favorites of the Month I've read a lot of books I've loved this month, in a range of genres. Here are my six favorites, although I had to deliberate a little bit before settling on this list. What are some of your favorite reads of August? 01 Heartwood by Amity Gaige Amity Gaige's Appalachian Trail-set novel offers several of my favorite elements: a Maine setting, a missing-person storyline, an unforgiving wilderness, and a strong woman succeeding in a male-dominated field. This mystery hit the spot for me. But the nonbeliever is in a bind, because without God, who forgives? Human beings are pretty unforgiving. The law certainly isn’t forgiving. Forgiveness needs a messenger. Amity Gaige's Heartwood  offers the story of Beverly, a dedicated Maine State Game Warden who has fought for years for an amount of respect to match her commitment and ability, and Valerie, an Appalachian Trail hiker who has gone missing 200 miles from her final destination. Wheelchair-bound Lena, who is following the search from afar, Valerie, and Bev are inexorably connected, and Valerie's survival depends upon the other two women's bravery and relentlessness. Meanwhile, the novel explores imperfect parenting, compounding mistakes by clinging to fear or regret, and against-the-odds second chances. Forgiveness is a concept that emerges again and again here. I love a Maine setting, a missing-persons story, and a tale of brave women thriving in a traditionally male career. This story is so intriguing, I had trouble putting it down. Amity Gaige is also the author of O My Darling , The Folded World , Schroder , and Sea Wife . Check out the titles at the links here for more missing person stories  and for more books set in Maine . For my full review of this book please see Heartwood . 02 A Family Matter by Claire Lynch Claire Lynch's novel shapes two timelines separated by decades into an engrossing, complicated family story of forbidden love, secrets, impending death, and second chances, against a backdrop of everyday minutiae. I read this in a day; I loved it. In A Family Matter , we track a British family along two timelines. In 1982, Dawn, a young mother in a fine but loveless marriage finds happiness in a socially unacceptable relationship, and the legal backlash causes her to lose custody of--and contact with--her beloved young daughter Maggie. In 2022, Heron, Maggie's father, has just received terrible news about his health, and he works to come to terms with it within his carefully prescribed daily routine and regular banal conversations with Maggie and family. It becomes clear that Maggie is unaware of the particular circumstances around her parents' divorce and the reason for her mother's subsequent disappearance--until a clean-out of her childhood home reveals long-held secrets. I read this engrossing family story in a day and can't wait to read future fiction by Claire Lynch. Claire Lynch is also the author of Irish Autobiography  and Small: On Motherhoods . For more family stories I've loved, check out the books at this link . For my full review of this book please see A Family Matter . 03 Trust by Hernan Diaz This story-within-a-story-within-a-story reveals a clever woman working within the 1920s confines of her sex to outsmart Wall Street while retaining a conscience while showcasing foolish, greedy men determined to manipulate the truth in order to paint themselves in a better light. I was intrigued by the structure and by the peeks behind the curtains of a wealthy family and one woman's financial acumen. In 1920s New York, Benjamin Rask is a ruthless, outrageously successful Wall Street tycoon, and his beloved wife Helen is the daughter of quirky intellectual aristocrats. They have exceeded any imaginable measure of success and wealth, and their elite financial position and power has in turn catapulted them to the peaks of social status. But dark secrets lie behind their intriguing success. Diaz's novel explores multiple versions of the couple's story through various points of view, which together present fascinating questions about the true story of two disparate personalities, their marriage, and their intertwined success. The structure of the novel is intriguing; through shifting perspectives and increasingly occluded reality, the reader must choose a narrative to believe. Characters come off as less realistic than their fictionalized versions (who are main protagonists of the story inside a story), and the ability of those with money and power to manipulate the truth into pure fiction is chilling--and chillingly familiar these days . Hernan Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize for Trust . He is also the author of In the Distance . For my full review, please check out Trust . 04 Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart Gary Shteyngart's story of an uncommonly intelligent fifth-grader, Vera, allows for a precocious child's point of view and observations that are delightfully spot-on and insightful. This is zany, heartwarming, often funny, and just lovely. Through precocious fifth-grader Vera's point of view in Vera, or Faith , we get to know her family, the Bradford-Shmulkins, and its various dynamics. The family lives in New York City, and Vera's parents, Anne Mom (her stepmother, a stay-at-home-mom at times derogatorily called Trad Wife) and Daddy (a culturally Russian, self-aggrandizing magazine editor and sometimes-writer), struggle to cope with financial pressures and relationship issues, while young Vera tries to simply make a friend at school and find her biological mother--while avoiding her annoying little brother's roughhousing and meathead games. This was wryly funny, sometimes zany, and so very heartwarming. Gary Shteyngart is also the author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook , Absurdistan , Super Sad True Love Story , and other novels. I received a prepublication edition of this title, which was published July 8, courtesy of Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley. For my full review, please check out Vera, or Faith . 05 A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst Sophie Elmhirst's A Marriage at Sea  is the true story of a couple whose sailing trip to New Zealand becomes a fight for survival. This is nonfiction that seems too incredible to be true, and I was hooked on the details of their 118-day-long struggles on the ocean. Sophie Elmhirst revisits a decades-old true story that she crafts like fiction, skillfully using dry firsthand accounts and subsequent interviews to build a fascinating, fluid, compelling nonfiction book about a couple whose ambitious sailing trip from England to New Zealand was abruptly halted when a whale breached beneath their sailboat, capsizing it. Elmhirst manages to shape a suspenseful nonfiction work despite the Maralyn and Maurice's significant periods of isolation, struggle, and repetitive tasks. She delves into their inner lives, exploring the workings of their relationship and fleshing out an intriguing dynamic against the unforgiving backdrop of the endless-seeming expanse of ocean and 118 days of clawing for survival. The story's pacing doesn't flag, although the tale sets a slower tempo as Maurice and Maralyn settle into a daily pattern of fishing, gathering water, and struggling to keep their minds occupied--a measure that is largely driven by Maralyn. Maurice is frank about his deteriorating emotional state and his reliance upon Maralyn's unfailing determination. Click here   for my full review. If you love nonfiction books, you might like the titles on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Compelling Nonfiction Reads  , Six Favorite Nonfiction and Memoir Reads of the Year , Six Nonfiction and Memoir Reads I Loved , Six of My Favorite Nonfiction Reads , or these other nonfiction books I've reviewed . 06 The Knight and the Moth (Stonewater Kingdom #1) by Rachel Gillig The shadowy, eerie tone of the first title in Gillig's Stonewater Kingdom series gives way to heartwarming, sometimes funny moments as an unlikely pack of allies sets out on a journey of discovery, complete with battles, evolving loyalties, and an increasingly high-stakes quest. The romantic aspect is less essential than the fantasy elements, which I appreciated. The first book in Rachel Gillig's Stonewater Kingdom series, The Knight and the Moth , considers Sybil Delling ("Six") and a group of five other foundling girls who have given up ten years of their lives to serve as Diviners, dedicating themselves wholly to being submerged in magical waters and conveying their visions and dreams of Omens at her abbess's whim. But the shrouded girls, who have bonded over the years like family, begin to disappear, and Sybil doubts for the first time whether their collective purpose is holy and noble after all. She starts to question the motivations of those with influence, including the abbess who has tasked them with the violent drowning dreams and the Omens themselves. I don't love an overly swoony, melodramatic "romantasy" story in which characters' energy is spent on pining and obsessing, where dramatic declarations overshadow a novel's fantasy elements. The Knight and the Moth  is built on a spare yet satisfying fantasy world with a limited number of characters and an essential engaging romance aspect that is far more than a swoony distraction. I really, really liked this balance. I can't wait for the next books in this series. For my full review, please check out this link .

Mandanna's is a fun magical story featuring an oddball cast of characters, satisfying justice, love, chosen family, funny dialogue, and heartwarming moments. Sera Swan was one of Britain's most powerful young witches. She showed so much promise, her skill threatened to overtake that of her belittling, greedy mentor. But then she resurrected her (just barely) dead aunt, her adored guardian Jasmine, and the spell required to do so would have done in any other witch. As it was, the effort diminished Sera's magical powers to almost nothing. Because she used the forbidden spell, she is exiled from the magical Guild. (Much of this mess occurs because of the dubious abilities and motives of a talking fox/former witch who moves into the inn.) Sera returns home to her magically enhanced inn, run by her treasured aunt. The inn is magicked to physically draw in visitors who would benefit from an enchanted stay. A few guests remain long-term, and while they initially are unaware of Sera and her bolstering of the inn's features and comfort with magic, eventually they're brought into the secret. Sera's former mentor is wreaking havoc, grasping at ever-increasing power, and frightening other witches into doing his bidding. Meanwhile, Sera realizes that a very old spell exists that could restore her powers. Then Luke Larsen, a handsome, grumpy magical historian, comes to stay at Jasmine and Sera's inn along with his neurodivergent young sister, and suddenly Sera and her messy, oddball chosen family are forced to consider their collective futures. Obtaining the spell from the Guild is one enormous challenge--which will require a scrappy plan, cooperation, and some amazing luck. But deciphering the nebulous ingredients required to enact it might just be impossible. You’re still here, they said, those echoes of all the Seras that ever were. You went up in flames, but you’re still here. You’ll go up in flames again, but that’s ok, you know what to do now. You’ve done it already. I loved Sera's discovery of her inner strength and her willingness to rewrite her future. This is heartwarming and shies away from being too cute yet is consistently charming. The dialogue is lovely, and the oddball set of characters is nicely developed. I listened to A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping as an audiobook. More from Sangu Mandanna Sangu Mandanna is also the author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches . You might also want to check out more cozy stories  I've reviewed.

Comedian Maria Bamford's memoir is unflinching in examining her own base impulses and personal challenges such as mental illness and loss. I needed to acclimate to her tone in order to appreciate her sometimes funny, often chaotic reflections and explorations. In Sure, I'll Join Your Cult , comedian Maria Bamford mines the ups and downs of her childhood (as a child in the 1980s, she struggled with an eating disorder) and her adulthood (she's frank and funny about her own mental illness--and how she and her husband cope with various challenges surrounding mental health) to illustrate her desperate willingness to belong. Bamford evaluates her ongoing search for and her innate need to find a group where she might focus her energy and satisfy her yearning for connection. She is frank about the complementary, possibly enabling roles she and her husband play in their collective mental-health journeys, and early in the book she shares the ways in which they messily trudge forward at times. The book begins in fairly zany fashion, but this doesn't hold. Bamford doesn't shy away from addressing potentially weighty issues, such as her time in mental health facilities, the loss of a parent, and her least generous internal impulses like jealousy, and she does so without sentimentality, which required me to adjust to her tone. Reading Sure, I'll Join Your Cult requires diving in on her voice and unflinching, examining point of view. Her openness is refreshing and disarmingly charming. I cringed some and I laughed at times, but I appreciated her candid sharing more than I felt immersed within it; despite her brutal honesty about many parts of her life, I felt somewhat at a distance from her story throughout. I received an audiobook version of this title, which will be released September 5, courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio and Libro.fm . More Bamford and Other Memoirs Maria Bamford is also the author of Weakness Is the Brand , Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome , Ask Me About My New God , You Are (A Comedy) Special , and other works. You might also want to check out these Bossy reviews of memoirs  I've read.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Gary Shteyngart's story of a precocious young girl finding her way in her complicated family and in the world, Vera, or Faith ; I'm reading Steve Cavanagh's twisty revenge mystery, Kill for Me, Kill for You ; and I'm listening to Maria Bamford's candid memoir, Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart Through fifth-grader Vera's point of view, we get to know her family, the Bradford-Shmulkins, and its various dynamics. They live in New York City and Vera's parents, Anne Mom (her stepmother, a stay-at-home-mom) and Daddy (a self-aggrandizing magazine editor and writer), struggle to cope with financial pressures and relationship issues, while precocious Vera tries to simply make a friend at school and find her real mother--and avoid her annoying little brother's roughhousing and meathead games. So far this is wryly funny, sometimes zany, and heartwarming. Gary Shteyngart is also the author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook , Absurdistan , Super Sad True Love Story , and other novels. I received a prepublication edition of this title, which was published July 8, courtesy of Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley. 02 Kill for Me, Kill for You by Steve Cavanagh In Steve Cavanagh's twisty mystery Kill for Me, Kill for You , two strangers, women bearing the brunt of two different violent tragedies--and struggling with a lack of justice for those responsible--make a Strangers on a Train -type of deal: If you kill the man responsible for my loss, I'll kill the one responsible for yours. Because the women aren't linked outside of an anonymous grief support group, and because their friendship is unknown to anyone but themselves, they should be safe from detection. But the situation is far more complicated than it seems. Ruth, a young married woman living elsewhere in the city, is brutally attacked in her own home--and the intruder, who has piercing blue eyes but remains unidentified, is on the loose as Ruth reels from disastrous repercussions and mental illness. The intersection of the novel's victims who are bent on justice is fascinating. This is the first mystery I've read by Steve Cavanagh. I don't love the title, but I'm hooked on the story. 03 Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere by Maria Bamford In Sure, I'll Join Your Cult , comedian Maria Bamford mines the ups and downs of her childhood (as a child in the 1980s, she struggled with an eating disorder) and her adulthood (she's frank and funny about her own mental illness--and how she and her husband cope with various challenges surrounding mental health) to illustrate her desperate willingness to belong. Her openness is refreshing and disarmingly charming. I received an audiobook version of this title, which will be released September 5, courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio and Libro.fm. You might also want to check out these Bossy reviews of memoirs I've read.

I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie When I was compiling this list and double-checking page counts, I kept surprising myself with my own disconnect--some of the books I was sure were epic were only sort of long, and I didn't initially realize that some of the books on this list were quite so lengthy. As I greedily peer toward fall and cooler weather, I love the idea of settling in with some longer books. All but one of these wonderful titles ( Demon Copperhead , at 560) comes in at over 600 pages, so they're perfect reads to cozy up with for an extended reading session. What are some of your favorite long novels?   01 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Kingsolver offers an epic story of a faulted, unlikely hero in danger of being crushed by exceptionally difficult circumstances. His golden heart and grit allow him to keep fighting through brokenness, pain, and disappointment in rural Virginia. Demon Copperhead , a sort of Appalachian David Copperfield , is epic . It's 560 pages and driven by the unique voice and gritty, heartbreakingly hopeful, broken voice of Demon (born Damon, and ultimately a redhead, hence the "Copperhead"). Charles Dickens's experience with extreme poverty in Victorian England inspired him to highlight its cruel impacts on children in his story David Copperfield . That book inspired Demon Copperhead , in which Kingsolver showcases the invisibility of the rural poor in Appalachia as well as a tragic cycle of poverty, drug dependence, and death--with signature Kingsolver characters who have unique voices and are complex, flawed, and irresistible. The downward spiral of the story kept going and going, and its grimness took my breath away. Yet Kingsolver keeps Demon's voice strong even as he falters and as everything he has counted on seems swept away. His rock-bottom--it isn't a moment; it feels as though he drags the bottom for years--sets up a situation in which he seems washed clean for some version of a new beginning. The prospects for Demon's future seem far from neat and perfect, but by the end of the book there are glimmers of hope for our faulted hero. Click here for my full review of Demon Copperhead . This was one of my favorite books of the year when I read it. 02 The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell This gem from Mitchell is a set of six intriguing tracks through time that are full of surprises. You only value something if you know it’ll end. Teenager Holly Sykes is suddenly drawn into the world of “the radio people,” whose voices she heard as a child. She disappears from her family and leaves behind a tragic mystery, while in her forays through new worlds she attracts dangerous powers to her. David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks  is a set of six intriguing tracks through time that are full of surprises and interconnected through Holly and her various threads of reality. There are links to other Mitchell books and characters if you're paying attention, but the book can stand alone. I've never read a book quite like this before. A full genre shift around page 400 would normally make me want to throw a book through the window. But here it works somehow. This was strange and compelling. Mitchell is one of a kind, and I love it. Another book I loved of his was Utopia Avenue , and it was completely different in tone but also wonderfully David Mitchell-level intriguing. This book is part of my Greedy Reading List Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore . For my full review, please check out The Bone Clocks . 03 The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati I loved digging into this 750-page historical fiction wonder. It ticked many of my boxes: a woman in a conventionally male role, richly wrought characters, and a vivid setting. In The Gilded Hour , Sara Donati shapes a historical fiction story about an eccentric family and a broad surrounding cast of characters--and it's all centered around independent women with unconventional women's roles in society in nineteenth century New York City. The Gilded Hour  explores how these women's abilities and constraints intersect with women's rights of the time period, social responsibility, and conventions, all in an immensely readable book rich in period detail, with great dialogue and satisfying elements of love, mystery, and searches for justice. I felt that a couple of important underlying plot lines remained oddly unresolved at the end--even keeping in mind that there's a second book in Donati's Waverly Place series, Where the Light Enters . However, I just loved this story and Donati's storytelling too much to let it cloud my gleeful reading experience. For my full review, please check out The Gilded Hour . The Gilded Hour is part of the Greedy Reading List Thankful for Five-Star Bossy Reads . 04 The Rose Code by Kate Quinn Kate Quinn makes the urgency of World War II code breaking come alive through the stories of three young women and their interconnected destinies in The Rose Code . The Rose Code  is a wonderfully spun historical fiction story of three very different women who answer the wartime call to England's top-secret Bletchley Park in order to break the military codes of the Axis powers. I love a World War II story about strong women making a difference, but I admit that I was curious about how even a historical fiction storytelling master like Kate Quinn could craft a compelling novel around the potential tedium at the heart of code breaking. Quinn offers plenty of interpersonal conflict, romance, suspected double-crossing, and details of life within both timelines, and in her hands, the descriptions of code-breaking mechanisms and the detailed, complicated, elusive process of figuring out messages were captivating.       For my full review, check out The Rose Code . This title is part of the Greedy Reading List Six More Books about Brave Female Spies . Kate Quinn is also the author of The Diamond Eye , The Huntress , The Rose Code , The Alice Network , and, with Janie Chang, The Phoenix Crown . 05 Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land  was a complex, heartbreaking, hope-filled, surprising, fascinating read. Young Anna lives in fifteenth-century Constantinople with her sickly sister, frustrated with endlessly stitching priests' robes--and secretly learning to read stories from the past. In twentieth-century Idaho, Zeno has lived a long life filled with yearning, war, and unexpected late-in-life academic satisfaction. He is directing a precious group of children in a farcical, heartbreaking play based on the stories Anna read five centuries earlier. And far in the future, Konstance is in a vault on the spaceship Argos , destined for a distant planet. She largely lives in a vivid virtual world but leaves to scribble scraps of information about the same ancient stories that touched the lives of Anna and Zeno. The stories in Cloud Cuckoo Land  (which is the name of the book-within-a-book) connect these characters across space and time. Cloud Cuckoo Land  was consistently beautiful, always interesting, and sometimes heartbreaking. Check out my full review of Cloud Cuckoo Land   here . 06 Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead Shipstead has created two independent, defiant, appealingly strong young women split by time. I was hooked on both story lines and loved this. Great Circle  spans the wilds of Prohibition-era Montana, the blustery Pacific Northwest, the unforgiving chill of Alaska, the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and the movie-making business, and the stark, brutal dangers of Antarctica, from the early twentieth century to modern day. Great Circle  traces events starting with a sinking ocean liner in 1914 and the introduction of Marian and James, twin babies rescued from that tragedy; it follows the paths of the twins' lives as they grow up; the story tracks young Marian's ignited passion for aviation and her adventures; and the book injects a modern-day story line in which a famous young actress takes on the role of Marian for a film. In interconnected stories--which felt equally compelling to me--Shipstead brings to life these disparate places and times and focuses on various colorful characters within them. Shipstead is a wonderful writer, and I loved every word of this. Both of the timelines had me hooked. For my full review, please see Great Circle .

Sophie Elmhirst's A Marriage at Sea is the true story of a couple whose sailing trip to New Zealand becomes a fight for survival. This is nonfiction that seems too incredible to be true, and I was hooked on the details of their 118-day-long struggles on the ocean. Sophie Elmhirst revisits a decades-old true story that she crafts like fiction, skillfully using dry firsthand accounts and subsequent interviews to build a fascinating, fluid, compelling nonfiction book about a couple whose ambitious sailing trip from England to New Zealand was abruptly halted when a whale breached beneath their sailboat, capsizing it. Elmhirst manages to shape a suspenseful nonfiction work despite the Maralyn and Maurice's significant periods of isolation, struggle, and repetitive tasks. She delves into their inner lives, exploring the workings of their relationship and fleshing out an intriguing dynamic against the unforgiving backdrop of the endless-seeming expanse of ocean and 118 days of clawing for survival. The story's pacing doesn't flag, although the tale sets a slower tempo as Maurice and Maralyn settle into a daily pattern of fishing, gathering water, and struggling to keep their minds occupied--a measure that is largely driven by Maralyn. Maurice is frank about his deteriorating emotional state and his reliance upon Maralyn's unfailing determination. Incredibly, they meticulously plan their next boat's design and begin to plot a route for when they embark on their next sailing trip. (The design and trip ultimately adhere closely to these plans.) Maralyn imagines outfits to sew, dinner party menus she will make, and more. When she noted the happenings of the day, however bleak, the day was proven to be real and her faculties intact. The writing was the proof. The lists, the menus, and the clothes were reminders that such things still existed. Solid things, on solid ground, that she could make with her own hands. She was still alive. Look, it said so on the page. Their fishing is reliant upon safety pins, their flares don't light when they spy boats passing through the nearby shipping lanes, and eventually, their inflatable dinghy and life raft both begin to leak. Their rainwater is contaminated, their canned goods rust inside, and their clothes rot away. Yet they gather more water; they use fish guts to catch additional fish; they snatch birds that land upon their floating craft and eat them; and they pull sharks into the boat, butcher them, and eat their livers. Their evolving resourcefulness is incredible to witness, and it's fascinating to read about the renewed vigor with which the couple--and particularly Maralyn--faces each new, potentially deadly, challenge. A Marriage at Sea  is nonfiction that reads like fiction. More Nonfiction I've Loved If you love nonfiction books, you might like the titles on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Compelling Nonfiction Reads , Six Favorite Nonfiction and Memoir Reads of the Year , Six Nonfiction and Memoir Reads I Loved , Six of My Favorite Nonfiction Reads , or these other nonfiction books I've reviewed .