Murrin's fascinating debut novel introduces a small town filled with complicated relationships and allows resentments, suspicions, petty grudges, and betrayals to swirl into powerful, dark forces that drive apart various characters and destroy lives. "In my day the worst thing you could imagine was being unmarried--you just went with the first fellow who asked you.” It's 1994 in a small town in County Donegal, Ireland. Izzy is a housewife increasingly impatient with her husband's controlling nature and public-focused politician's persona. Colette is a poet who left her husband and sons for love with a married man in Dublin, but who has now returned--to a mix of resentment and fascination. When the women become unlikely friends, their lives intersect in unexpected ways. Izzy is the avenue by which Colette hopes to have access to her children again, and Colette's bravery might inspire Izzy to break free of her unsupportive husband. Meanwhile both have become friends with the local priest, Father Brian Dempsey, who is an unjudgmental, joyful presence in their small worlds. But this is not a charming small-town Irish story. Murrin's characters are bitter, sad, entitled, frustrated, bullying, resentful, put-upon, or angry. Some are blindsided by others' outbursts and demands; others fold under pressure they didn't expect. Some vendettas take on power and lead to pivotal breaks. The dark undercurrent to the story and the town grows more formidable as the story evolves, and characters prove themselves capable of more cruelty, more cold-blooded plotting, and more petty destruction than I had imagined. In some relationships within the story, potentially enormous shifts fizzle and never take shape. In others, looming consequences and feared repercussions send various delicate situations over the edge; what seemed like empty threats of divorce dramatically shake up a family; what seemed like a temporary distance becomes tragically permanent; what seemed like harmless jealousy sends a citizen out of town forever; what seemed to be a couple playing at betrayal becomes a high-stakes, deadly situation. Murrin's dialogue is perfection. The sing-songy cadence and negative questions ("Did she not...?" structure) feels perfectly Irish. A sinister feeling emerges and simmers throughout the remainder of the novel, ultimately leading to increasingly large emotional explosions that dramatically shift the story. More to Check Out The Coast Road is Alan Murrin's debut novel. You might also be interested in these other Bossy Irish-set reads.

I loved Foley's 1950s-set snowy mountaintop murder mystery, informed by Agatha Christie's style and iconic Miss Marple character, but incorporating Foley's signature multiple point-of-view perspectives and addressing issues that feel relevant today. The fictional Grand Alpine Hotel is located high in the Swiss Alps and can only be accessed by a winding railway. It feels to some like the perfect getaway in 1950, five years following the end of World War II. So when two nuns, a starlet, a politician and his dutiful wife, a hotheaded friend, a couple of underestimated elderly women, a detail-focused companion, an inspector, and a hotel full of other guests and staff find that a murder has occurred in their midst, everything is thrown into turmoil--and no one can escape it. Everyone is keeping secrets, and the reader will likely suspect multiple characters who are hiding crucial facts and playing everything close to the vest. This classic-feeling mystery is very much set in another age, yet it brings to light issues relevant today centering around, for example, male-female power imbalances, societal limitations, unorthodox paths to happiness, and desperate, elaborate measures taken to try to ensure freedom. The denouement reveals deliciously ambitious, wonderfully over-the-top details that helped the various aspects of the mountaintop crimes go off largely without a hitch--but Miss Marple's eagle eyes don't miss much, and she ultimately identifies the real story behind various protagonists' lies. In Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, Lucy Foley writes within a classic Agatha Christie-style setup, while incorporating Foley's own signature multiple point of view perspective to explore each character in turn. Foley aimed to channel the legendary author while inserting elements that are relevant and powerful to modern-day readers. In Foley's author's note she addresses how she came to write this first Miss Marple mystery in 50 years, in cooperation with Agatha Christie's estate. I listened to this novel as an audiobook, narrated by Hayley Atwell, Lucy Boynton, Adeel Akhtar, Mara Wilson, and Hugh Kermode. Lucy Foley is coming to speak to my local library foundation this fall, and I can't wait! More Bossy Titles to Check Out Foley is also the author of The Book of Lost and Found, The Invitation, Last Letter from Istanbul, The Hunting Party, The Guest List, The Paris Apartment, and The Midnight Feast. You might also be interested in other Bossy mystery reviews, or other mysteries featuring sleuths of a certain age.

I adored the Upstairs, Downstairs, Downton Abbey-style peek at the unlikely cast of robust characters (here, former convicts) working in the Victorian household of a groundbreakingly independent woman, a financial genius overcoming societal limitations in order to allow other women's freedoms. The minor mystery and some of the romance elements didn't resonate as strongly with me as other aspects, but the novel is highly entertaining and lovely. No one ever really expected happiness in this life. Rich or poor, hardly no one got what they wanted. You had to be content with your lot, whatever it was. Be grateful for small blessings. Know it could all disappear in an instant. As the illegitimate daughter of a fierce, Spanish-born mother, Reina Martin understands the importance of having control over your own life. But Victorian society refuses women's voices and choices at every turn. Reina is unsurprised but furious when she has difficulty convincing a bank manager to allow her to open a sizeable account without a man's signature. But the young economist takes her relentless demands for independence and reshaping women's freedoms much farther--she becomes determined to establish England's first women's bank, with her help of her happenstance, dedicated mentor William Farlow. With her savvy instincts and investments, Reina grows her fortune, finally buying a formerly grand, dilapidated home she has long admired, Westbrook House, from which she writes and feverishly works. Her longtime friend (who is now a culinary student) June joins her and mans the kitchen, and Reina fills out other necessary roles in the home with a colorful cast of recently paroled workers--much to June's chagrin. When Reina realizes that the household of new additions that she relies on, one that is shaping up to be a ragtag makeshift family of sorts, includes an undercover investigator looking into her trusted friend Farlow, she feels betrayed. And she is now faced with impossible decisions around loyalty, morality, and her own ambitious goals for those who desperately need a boost. “After seeing how the law goes in favor of the ones with the most financial resources, I wanted to find out why they were always men. After thorough research of English law, I discovered the answer: Approximately ninety percent of all the laws that mention women have been designed to keep wealth out of female hands.” Much of the novel focuses, delightfully, on an Upstairs, Downstairs-type of peek inside a mansion's workings and its colorful cast of workers. The characters who seem potentially murderous or duplicitious develop unshakable loyalty to Reina and find roles that, if not exactly what they're hired for, suit them beautifully. The transformations of members of the staff--as well as for Reina in their midst--are striking, often funny, and heartwarming. The character of Mad Dog was a particular gem. The plot running beneath the novel's focus on breaking Victorian rules of rigidity centers around finance and burgeoning feminism. But Kleypas has primarily published romance novels, and while two budding, societally forbidden romances threaten to bloom throughout this story (I loved the simmering promise in both cases), they become a real focus (somewhat abruptly for me) toward the end of the book, when much of the focus falls on their culmination in relationships. I enjoyed the building of the love that emerges throughout Queen of Lombard Street. But in light of the rich building blocks of characters, roles, growth, banter, and platonic love among the household Kleypas has carefully wrought to that point, as well as the broader Victorian implications in all areas for convicted persons, women, and class, I found the focus and page time spent on detailed sex scenes here jarring; they irritably removed me from the wide-ranging magic that was shaped beforehand for the full cast of characters. The sleuthing involved in the financial aspect of the plot and uncovering of the truth requires a significant suspension of disbelief regarding amateur involvement, coincidences, guesses, access, and escape. This felt like an added-on set of scenes needed to advance this part of the plot. Ultimately I wanted to spend all of my Queen of Lombard Street reading time immersed in Kleypas's Westbrook House world, witnessing the outrageous and hilarious, poignant and touching, and heartbreaking and heartwarming developments among the rich, memorable characters that the author placed under one fictional Victorian roof. Some of the novel's characters are based upon real-life figures such as Mary Paley Marshall, Britain’s first female economist, the financial giant Hetty Green, and Florence Nightingale. (Side question: Did you know that Nightingale was "a groundbreaking statistician who used charts and graphs to help the public understand complex data about health and hygiene"? I didn't!) I received a prepublication edition of this novel courtesy of NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager, and I received an audiobook version (narrated by Mary Jane Wells and Joe Jameson) courtesy of Libro.fm and Avon. More Books to Explore Lisa Kleypas is the author of 50 contemporary and historical romance novels. You might also like these historical fiction Bossy favorites.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Julie Orringer's story of infidelity, secrets, and the power of a dog, Luna, Phoenix, Queen; I'm listening to Lucy Foley's Miss Marple Mystery, written as an homage to and aimed at being in the style of Agatha Christie, Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel; and I'm listening to Chad Harbach's campus novel, The Brightness. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Luna, Phoenix, Queen by Julie Orringer Dava and her husband Barr were both university professors; she taught English literature, while he taught (and still teaches) fiction writing. But Dava is suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's, and Barr now visits her in a memory-care facility. Then Barr realizes that the secret writing project Dava worked on for years and carefully hid away was in fact the fantastic heart of a novel--one that also revealed her love for a university colleague and her seeming contempt for Barr. Barr, a somewhat self-important and now embarrassed spouse, begins to shape Dava's novel--which she has no memory of creating--into a strong story, albeit with a more sympathetic, manly male protagonist and without the passionate sex between the two characters having an affair. Before he knows it, he's passing it off as his own tour de force. While each spouse's secrets cast shadows across their lives both separate and apart, Barr periodically visits Luna, a horribly burned dog at the shelter, feeling that they can communicate in startling clarity and considering bringing her home for good. I received a prepublication edition of this novel courtesy of NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 02 Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel: A Miss Marple Mystery by Lucy Foley and Agatha Christie The fictional Grand Alpine Hotel is located high in the Swiss Alps and can only be accessed by a winding railway. It feels to some like the perfect getaway in 1950, five years following the end of World War II. So when two nuns, a starlet, a politician and his dutiful wife, a hotheaded friend, a couple of underestimated elderly women, a detail-focused companion, and a hotel full of guests and staff find that a murder has occurred in their midst, everything is thrown into turmoil--and no one can escape it. Lucy Foley writes in the style of Agatha Christie with this Miss Marple Mystery; she aims to channel the author while inserting elements that are relevant and powerful to modern-day readers. I'm listening to this novel as an audiobook. 03 The Brightness by Chad Harbach In this campus-set novel, Harbach explores the messy, tangled lives of best friends Pella and Irma. Pella is 27 and a recent graduate of Midwestern Westish College. She's engaged to her longtime boyfriend Mike, who seems to have a hard time leaving his party days behind. She's finding some peace after the death of her father, and she's headed to her friend Owen's elaborate wedding weekend. Irma is in college and is somewhat reluctantly taking part in a politically charged stunt at The Parties that kick off her senior year. In one weekend, both young women's lives are thrown into disarray, and their futures become anything but certain. Chad Harbach is also the author of The Art of Fielding. I received a prepublication audio version of this title courtesy of Hachette Audio and Libro.fm, and I received an electronic version courtesy of NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company.

Bossy Favorites of the Month I hope you've had a great reading month as we head into Cozy Reading Season. I present to you: my six Bossy favorite reads of October, which range from historical fiction centered around an Irish folk heroine; historical fiction based on a little-known medieval woman; a heartwarming story about an obituary writer; a haunting, thought-provoking novel told from an unsympathetic point of view; a darkly funny story about a man with dementia and his planned assisted suicide; and a solid mystery from a favorite author. Have you read any of these titles? What were some of your favorite reads this month? 01 The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon I was completely hooked on the imagined details of the life of Irish folk heroine and female pirate Grace O'Malley. I ultimately loved the novel's unusual structure, which tracked back and forth in time and revealed more about the strong female protagonist at each turn. I fell hard for this slam dunk of a premise: A novel about a female pirate based on the life of Grace O’Malley, an Irish folk heroine who was legendarily willing to risk everything for her people. Yes, yes, and yes. Lawhon frequently tracks back and forth through time, orienting the reader at the start of each chapter with a "Maiden," "Mother," or "Matriarch" header, the year the chapter's events took place, and Grace's age during that period. I would have imagined that this structure would have been jarring and potentially difficult to dive into, but after the first few sections I was fascinated by finding out pieces of the Grace O'Malley puzzle as Lawson filled in details, context, and increased the reader's understanding of Grace's motivations, impulses, and convictions. The tone felt perfect to me for the imagined, detailed story of a strong woman who inspired folk devotion, and I loved reading the book. Ariel Lawhon is also the author of The Frozen River. Her novel Code Name Helène wasn't for me; I didn't finish that one. Check out these links for more Bossy reads about strong women, female pirates, or ocean voyages. For my full Bossy review, please check out The Pirate Queen. 02 Royal Witch (Plantaganet and Tudor #1) by Philippa Gregory The historical fiction-writing gift that is Philippa Gregory entertwines the richly imagined stories of three women in fifteenth century England, offering unapologetic ambition, genius manipulation, revenge plots, dark arts, and drastic comeuppances in this fascinating novel. It's 1420 and Eleanor Cobham (a real figure, about whom little is known), in a terrific initial scene, willfully misunderstands her dying mother's last wish for her, rejecting the nunnery and heading to the royal court. She arrives at the court of Henry V hoping to simply marry well despite her common upbringing and lack of dowry. But working in a countess's household, Eleanor learns how to efficiently bend a man to a woman's will, how to manage men's outsized egos, and how to wield power without seeming to pull the strings. Philippa Gregory builds a richly imagined proposed story for Eleanor, although little is known of Eleanor's actual life details. Eleanor is unapologetically ambitious, cutthroat, and conniving. She is largely unsympathetic, yet I found myself rooting for a woman to outsmart all of the men who underestimated and aimed to control her. Gregory doesn't force a redemption arc for the singleminded, relentless, ruthless Eleanor, yet after a horror of a reckoning toward the end of the book, she eventually demonstrates valuable reflection that seems plausible. I received a prepublication audiobook of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and William Morrow. The audiobook was fantastic. For my full review of this book please see Royal Witch. 03 I See You've Called in Dead by John Kenney I was charmed by John Kenney's darkly funny, thoughtful novel about an obituary writer hitting rock bottom and reflecting on mortality, leaning on his friends, and finding unorthodox ways to embrace the messiness and wonder of life again. Awkard, endearing Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who's going through some things. He's gone downhill since his wife divorced him for her prior boyfriend, and now he's all but given up on love; his last blind date involved a woman who brought along her ex and explained that they were back together and she couldn't stay. I See You've Called in Dead teetered just on the edge of too jokey for me, but Kenney skillfully pulled back from taking it too far by keeping a dark edge to his humor and mixing grief, the sobering reality of facing mortality, and bursts of laughter in one realistically messy and irresistible character arc for Bud. The dialogue is fantastic, and I repeatedly laughed out loud. I was charmed by this novel. I've been thinking about this story with great affection and considering all the people to whom I'll recommend it. I listened to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library. John Kenney is also the author of Truth in Advertising, Talk to Me, Love Poems for People with Children, Love Poems for the Office, Love Poems for Anxious People, and Love Poems for Married People. He is a longtime contributor to The New Yorker magazine’s Shouts & Murmurs section. If you're interested in more Bossy reads that are darkly funny, check out these books. And for Bossy reads that explore issues around mortality, please check out these titles and book lists. For my full review, please check out this link. 04 Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix This slim (122-page) novel builds from a real-life tragedy to a deep, disturbing, fascinating exploration of morality, responsibility, chance, circumstances of birth, and judgment and empathy. I was intrigued by the unsympathetic narrator as well as the thought-provoking, unflinching, pointed questions directed at the reader. In 2021, an inflatable boat carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the English Channel, and all but two of the 29 people on board died. The vessel contacted French authorities with desperate pleas for help. They were told they were in British waters and must ask the UK for help--but that was untrue. Small Boat is told from the fictionalized point of view of the French navy officer who refused the passengers' pleas for help. In undulating, haunting turns of events, Delecroix forces the reader into the incredibly unsympathetic point of view of the faulted naval officer. Without redeeming her, Delecroix poses uncomfortable questions to the reader about their own culpability, their own empathy's limits, and their own likely willingness to step in and take desperate measures. I found this disturbing and absolutely fascinating. Explore these links for more Bossy reads around refugees, morality, and more short books that pack a punch. Please click here for my full review of this title. 05 Switzy by Emma Cline Cline crafts a poignant, darkly funny, and uncomfortably, beautifully spot-on-feeling novel about a man with dementia as the clock runs out. He increasingly loses his grasp on the facts but urgently reconnects with pivotal figures from his past and considers his rapidly unraveling, impenetrable reality while revealing to the reader powerful, universal truths. David is on a private plane headed for Switzerland. His assistant Cody has all of the details in hand for the retired executive who is traveling to his final stop. David's perspective makes clear that he is having trouble tracking details, recalling past events, and piecing together the entirety of his situation, and that he is headed to Switzerland with a plan to die before he is unable to make that decision due to dementia. The poignant premise is also darkly funny at times, often absurd, and frequently breathtakingly, messily unfiltered, alternating between rude, sly, touching, heartbreaking, and silly. I'm fascinated by books that explore mortality--see the link below for more Bossy reads in this vein--and I found Switzy powerful and irresistible. I received a prepublication audio version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. I also received a copy of this book through my monthly Books Are Magic subscription. Emma Cline is also the author of The Girls (a book I rated with four Bossy stars when I read it ten years ago, before this blog existed) and The Guest. You might also want to check out these Bossy reads that center around mortality. For my full review, please see Switzy. 06 Secrets We Hide (North Falls #2) by Karin Slaughter The Secrets We Hide offers what is for me the perfect blend of character development, layered interpersonal issues, and mystery twists and turns that never feel convoluted, plus other favorite Bossy elements: a small-town setting, a family legacy of police work, and a condensed, healthily paced timeline from the story's beginning to end. I was hooked on this novel. I love a story driven by a female investigator main protagonist, and in book one of this small-town mystery series, We Are All Guilty Here, officer Emmy Clifton came into her own. The situation at hand quickly became dark and twisted, and Slaughter built tension without red herrings or manipulation. In book two, now-Sheriff Emmy and her sister, ex-federal agent Jude Archer, respond to gunshots nearby and find a tragedy: local former cop Allison Vickery has been shot dead in her kitchen, and Allison's daughter has been shot and left for dead upstairs. I was hooked on this story. Slaughter offers her signature layered mystery, buoyed by character depth and interpersonal complications. This is the perfect mix of character development and personal lives and non-manipulative mystery twists. I listened to this novel as an audiobook through Libby and my public library. The first title in the North Falls series is We Are All Guilty Here. Please also check out these other Bossy mystery reviews and book lists. For my full review, please check out Secrets We Hide.

McLain brings to life the story of real-life aviation legend Beryl Markham, who was the first woman to make a solo trans-Atlantic flight and who lived a life of independence and unorthodox freedom. This is a wonderful complement to Markham's own memoir, West with the Night. There are things we find only at our lowest depths. The idea of wings and then wings themselves. An ocean worth crossing one dark mile at a time. The whole of the sky. I loved Beryl Markham's beautiful, adventure-driven memoir West with the Night (last month was the 90th anniversary of her historic solo trans-Atlantic flight) and it has long been one of my most recommended reads, so I was a little wary of reading someone else's account of her life. But Paula McLain did a lovely job fully setting the scene in vivid, varied, lush, unforgiving Africa--which in a way is really the main character of this book. McLain shapes a fully fleshed out story of Markham's young life and the fiercely independent woman's plausible internal dialogue, drive, and mindset. Searching out something important and going astray look exactly the same for a while, in fact. However, I felt and believed surprisingly little of her connection to the man described as the love of her life--that element felt told but not shown. My dissatisfaction in this regard could partially stem from their only occasional romantic encounters. This was a book I was sad to finish. I loved living through Beryl Markham's adventures, determined reinventions, and resolute rejection of society's expectations of her. More Bossy Reads Paula McLain is also the author of The Paris Wife, When the Stars Go Dark, and Skylark. You might also like these Bossy reads that are historical fiction, about strong women, about adventure, or that have to do with aviation.

This slim (122-page) novel builds from a real-life tragedy to a deep, disturbing, fascinating exploration of morality, responsibility, chance, circumstances of birth, and judgment and empathy. I was intrigued by the unsympathetic narrator as well as the thought-provoking, unflinching, pointed questions directed at the reader. Vincent Delecroix takes a grueling set of real-life events and builds a short, powerful, thought-provoking novel that plunges the reader into its plausible, gripping details--as well as the complex emotions, responsibility, morals, and considerations around the situation and more broadly, our world. In 2021, an inflatable boat carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the English Channel, and all but two of the 29 people on board died. The vessel contacted French authorities with desperate pleas for help. They were told they were in British waters and must ask the UK for help--but that was untrue. Small Boat is told from the fictionalized point of view of the French navy officer who refused the passengers' pleas for help. Delecroix imagines a scenario in which the naval officer willingly comes forward for a police interview and details the conversations that ensue--increasingly emotional on the side of the police, and increasingly calm on the side of the woman who was manning the radio. Yet Small Boat is far more than an exploration of the moral dilemmas within, justifications around, and aftermath of the greatest loss of life in English Channel history. In undulating, haunting turns of events, Delecroix forces the reader into the incredibly unsympathetic point of view of the faulted naval officer. The police and the narrator each consider whether she was negligent by incompetence or intent. They discuss whether her indifference to refugees' suffering adds to her condemnation or, as she asserts, if having become immune to impassioned pleas is essential to her job of indiscriminately saving lives. She is angry at the many desperate people who set out in leaky boats and then ask for her help, while realizing that she is employed for the purpose of coordinating life-saving assistance. She is damned by the callous, cruel (and recorded) words she spoke regarding the impossibility of saving the boat load of passengers while signing off from the fateful caller the night he and his boatmates died. But she asks whether the words or sentiments matter, particularly when considered against the thousands of lives she has helped save in the line of duty. Delecroix crafts an intriguing scenario in which the narrator sees distinct physical similarities and mannerisms common between herself and the police officer who is execrating her, which calls into question whether the interview is real or whether the narrator is embodying both sides of the situation and exploring both the accusations against her and her defenses for the deaths and her responsiblities around them. Within her cold, self-involved persona we begin to see hints of empathy as she builds (unfair) correlations to her own life, the safety of her own child, and her own plights. Without redeeming the naval officer, Delecroix poses uncomfortable questions to the reader about their own culpability, their own empathy's limits, and their own likely willingness to step in and take desperate measures. The novel considers not only situations at sea, out of range of most of our immediate awareness and assistance, but also for example the highly visible, numerous unhoused, hungry figures we regularly encounter and the other in-need people who surround us. I found this disturbing and absolutely fascinating. More Books to Explore Vincent Delecroix has published ten works of philosophy and eight works of fiction. Explore these links for more Bossy reads around refugees, morality, and more short books that pack a punch.

Lewis immerses three disparate female characters in the often lawless mayhem of the Gold Rush in the Yukon, where a tragic death binds together their fates. It's 1898 and in Canada, the frenzy of the Gold Rush has taken hold of the frigid Yukon. Three women in Dawson City are trying to find their way. Kate is a journalist who has hurried hundreds of miles to town after an urgent letter from her sister. Martha's hotel is under threat from a local bully buying up all the property he can. And Ellen and her husband risked everything for the hope of gold--but any potential fortune is slipping through their fingers. When a young woman is found murdered, the lives of these three characters become intertwined, and finding the culprit will mean tangling with rough, greedy, determined men set on the wealth promised in the local waters above any justice for the dead. I'm a big fan of Gold Rush-set stories, and of strong female characters in unforgiving frontiers. I was taken with Martha's unrelenting determination and her tough-lady-with-a-heart-of-gold character. Kate's diving into the messy, dangerous aspects of mining allows Lewis to show different facets of the process and the difficulty of an independent life for a women in that place and time. And I liked Ellen's slow rise to fury and her ultimate rejection of male control. The men in The Rush are largely detestable and without redeeming qualities, with a few exceptions. I prefer faulted but layered morally corrupt characters, but these are selfish, misogynistic, single-minded thugs and fools, and their comeuppances are satisfying. I was disappointed that the "mystery" was not as layered or complex as I'd hoped, but The Rush allows its female characters to come into their own despite what often feel like endless roadblocks to their growth. More Books to Check Out You might also like these other Bossy reads about the Gold Rush. Beth Lewis is also the author of The Wolf Road, Children of the Sun, Bitter Sun, and The Origins of Iris.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Lisa Kleypas's Victorian-set novel about independent women, Queen of Lombard Street; I'm reading Alan Murrin's debut novel about two women and unlikely allies in small-town 1994 Ireland, The Coast Road; and I'm reading Vincent Delecroix's slim, powerful novel based on devastating real events, Small Boat. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Queen of Lombard Street by Lisa Kleypas As the illegitimate daughter of a fierce, Spanish-born mother, Reina Martin understands the importance of having control over your own life. But Victorian society refuses women's voices and choices at every turn. Reina is having difficulty convincing a bank manager to allow her to open a sizeable account without a man's signature. But the young economist takes her independence much farther--she becomes determined to establish England's first women's bank with her help of her mentor William Farlow. When Reina realizes that the household of recently paroled workers that she relies on includes an undercover investigator looking into her trusted friend Farlow, she is faced with impossible decisions around loyalty, morality, and her own ambitious goals for those who desperately need a boost. The novel's characters are based upon real-life figures such as Mary Paley Marshall, Britain’s first female economist, and the financial giant Hetty Green. I received a prepublication edition of this novel courtesy of NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager, and I received an audiobook version (narrated by Mary Jane Wells and Joe Jameson) courtesy of Libro.fm and Avon. 02 The Coast Road by Alan Murrin It's 1994 in a small town in Ireland. Izzy is a housewife increasingly impatient with her husband's controlling nature and public-focused persona. Colette is a poet who left her husband and sons for love with a married man in Dublin, but who has now returned--to a mix of resentment and fascination. When the women become unlikely friends, their lives intersect in unexpected ways. Izzy is the avenue by which Colette hopes to have access to her children again, and Colette's bravery might inspire Izzy to break free of her unsupportive husband. The Coast Road is Alan Murrin's debut novel. 03 Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix Vincent Delecroix takes a grueling set of real-life events and builds a powerful novel that plunges the reader into its plausible, gripping details. In 2021, an inflatable boat carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the English Channel, and all but two of the 29 people on board died. The vessel contacted French authorities with desperate please for help. They were told they were in British waters and must ask the UK for help--but that was untrue. Small Boat is told from the fictionalized point of view of the French navy officer who refused the passengers' pleas for help. Delecroix imagines the moral dilemma, justifications, and aftermath of the greatest loss of life in English Channel history.

Sleuths of a Certain Age I'm a fan of reading mysteries in the fall--I guess this is my version of spooky seasonal reads? Recently I've been enjoying mysteries featuring complex, delightfully seasoned characters. (We could also refer to these as the Black, White, Red, and Navy Blue Covers.) Many of these protagonists are underestimated and overlooked, and they're therefore able to dig into mysteries without attracting as much notice as in their younger years. I took the liberty of including two Deanna Raybourn titles from the same series here; if you haven't read these yet, trust me, you should, and if you have read them, you understand why I had to list both. The Thursday Murder Club and The Martini Club are two other series that fit the bill here, and I listed the first installment in each although I also enjoyed reading the second in each series. And Vera Wong is a series, but I have only read the first book in it--which is included here. You might also like these other Greedy Reading Lists of Bossy mystery favorites. I'd love to hear about your favorite mystery reads! 01 Killers of a Certain Age #1 by Deanna Raybourn This fun, darkly funny, feminist story about a retiring female team of elite assassins was the right book at the right time for me: entertainment in the perfect combination of action and suspense, loyal friendship, clever plotting, and the promise of love. The Museum is an organization that operates outside of governmental control, relying on various trained elite killing forces. Originally formed in order to hunt down and rid the world of lingering Nazis, the Museum's mission has evolved to focus on taking out carefully chosen bad guys of all stripes--drug dealers, human traffickers, arms dealers, and the like. But when four aging Museum friends are sent on an all-expenses-paid vacation to mark their retirement, a Museum associate attempts to do them in. The women realize they may know too much about where the bodies are buried--literally--to be allowed to drift away into the world without a fight. In Killers of a Certain Age, Raybourn has crafted an irresistibly fun, clever, feminist caper that had me hooked the whole way through. I loved the women's complicated bonds, their crafty planning, their fights for justice, and their ability to remain flexible and reinvent themselves. I love a spy/assassin book and a book that treats dark subjects playfully without being silly. For my full review, check out Killers of a Certain Age. Check out the final book in this list to learn more about the second title in this series. 02 Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth I loved the octogenarian main protagonist of Elsie and the darkly funny start to the book. Her heartbreaking history surprised me, as did the revelations at the end of the novel. This was my first Sally Hepworth read but won't be my last. Elsie is an 81-year-old living in a Melbourne suburb, grumbling and mainly keeping to herself, aside from her best friend since childhood, a persistent 7-year-old girl who's determined to befriend her, and Peter, a kind young man across the street who she doesn't mind running into. Delving into Elsie's childhood is heartbreaking. She experienced staggering loss, disappointment, glimmers of hope, and a few key loved ones who anchored her. Her coping mechanisms, which we come to understand, are wrapped in shocking truths. My heart ached for the child she was and all that she endured. Some of the modern-day denouements were surprising, and those, along with the friends-like-family elements, made for an ending I didn't wholly expect. Sally Hepworth is also the author of The Good Sister, Darling Girls, The Mother-in-Law, The Family Next Door, and other books. For more Bossy reads featuring elderly protagonists, check out this link. And for more mysteries, please check out these Bossy titles. For my full review, please see Mad Mabel. 03 Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto Sutanto's Vera Wong is playful, brusque, bossy, and connects an unlikely cast of characters, all murder suspects, into a heartwarming friendship that feels like family. Vera Wong is running a largely unvisited tea house, lamenting her grown son's lack of time for her, and grumbling about the new "French" bakery that's just opened down the street in Chinatown. When a dead body shows up in her tea house, Vera takes charge of the investigation of what only she is certain is a murder. Marshall, the deceased, was a petty, obnoxious, verbally abusive, selfish, belittling jackass. As the truth comes out about Marshall's activities and his final evening, it becomes clear that each character has a possible motivation for having offed Marshall, so to Vera, each is a potential killer. She throws dinner parties and facilitates get-together to study her subjects. And along the way, Vera's brusque truth-telling inspires an unlikely group of friends to form a special bond that's more like that of a family. This was absolutely my favorite part of the book. This was a fast read (listen), and while the denouement didn't completely hold together for me and the loose ends were tied up with extreeeeeemely tidy bows, the story was really about the relationships and Vera's coming into her own, and I adored these aspects. Click here for my full review of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. 04 The Spy Coast (The Martini Club #1) by Tess Gerritsen A former CIA operative retires to small-town Maine--along with other former agents--to live out a quiet existence, until figures from the past roar in to turn everything on its head. Maggie Bird is a retired CIA operative who has made a simple home for herself in rural Maine. She's tried not to make emotional connections and she keeps to herself--old habits from her former life. Then Maggie is visited by someone with knowledge of her past--just before a dead body shows up in her driveway and someone tries to kill Maggie. Unbeknownst to the other citizens in Purity, Maine, the town has drawn multiple former intelligence agents (they make up the "martini club" in the series title). They didn't all work together in their former lives, but they are friends--despite habitual emotional distance--with commonalities in their backgrounds. Now they operate as a team to try to determine who is after Maggie and why. The dogged local acting sheriff, Jo Thibodeau (a great and legit Maine last name), is complicating things, pushing for answers and determined to figure out what's going on. For my full review of this book, please see The Spy Coast. The second book in the series is The Summer Guests. 05 The 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 second one also appears on this list), 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. For my full review, please check out this link. Book two in the series is The Man Who Died Twice. 06 Kills Well with Others (Killers of a Certain Age #2) by Deanna Raybourn Killers of a Certain Age was darkly funny, action-packed, feminist, and friend-focused. I love the second installment's return to my favorite aging assassins and their quick-thinking, spry, deadly answers to those who have broken moral codes--and who have our protagonists in their sights. Kills Well with Others picks up when our main characters, having laid low and lived their own lives for a year, are contacted by the Museum, the elite assassin organization they used to work for. An Eastern European gangster has obtained the names of agents who have stood in his way over the years, and our aging assassins seem likely to be next on his hit list. They must figure out who's turned traitor on the Museum and shared this information--and stay alive long enough to bring them to justice. Kills Well with Others sometimes feels a little bit as though Raybourn is gamely giving her readers what they want (more Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, Natalie--and Tanner!) rather than writing a book she felt compelled to put out into the world. But I'm one of those who are eager for more time with these clever, sometimes grumpy, often spontaneous, satisfyingly quick-thinking assassins who are loyal to each other above all. For my full review, please see Kills Well with Others.

Lerner's slim novel offers three distinct sections. In the first, a pivotal, wandering interview fails to be recorded; then the "reconstructed" aspect of that interview becomes clear; and ultimately, issues of memory, parenthood, technology, art, faulty recollections, and forgiveness shape the story. The unnamed narrator of Ben Lerner's short (144-page) novel has traveled to interview his 90-year-old mentor Thomas (who is also his best friend Max's father) to write what will likely be the art world giant's final published interview. But when the narrator drops his phone in the hotel sink beforehand, he arrives at Thomas's home without a way to record--and whether due to embarrassment, an unexplained inability to shift plans, or what seems to be a mysterious compulsion, he is unable or unwilling to reveal this fact. In Transcription, Lerner offers a novel in three parts, including the strange set of events that follow the smartphone fiasco. In the first section, our narrator begins a false start of an interview, posing initial questions to Thomas and pretending to record, yet all the while suggesting that the real interview occur the following day--when he believes he will have a working recording mechanism. That evening, Thomas offers some gems of memories but frequently departs abruptly from the posed topic or query and heads into the conversational ether, abandoning any link to logic or conventional discourse in order to put forth ideas about dreams the narrator have had that he posits have intersected with his own reality and his own dreams; nebulous artistic concepts; and faulted recollections in which he conflates his somewhat estranged son Max and his interviewer. This is a disjointed section of text, full of stops and starts, hesitancy on the narrator's part, bossy pushiness from Thomas, confusion, strange mental wanderings, and indications that Thomas is experiencing dementia. A skip in time to the book's second section finds various academics in Spain honoring Thomas after his death. We witness the shock waves of our narrator's casual admission that he "reconstructed" portions of his pivotal, often-quoted, seminal final interview with the artist. The final section of the novel was the most compelling, poignant, and beautiful for me. Thomas's son Max explores his daughter's eating difficulties, his heartfelt, eloquent last words to his father (who survived his severe case of Covid, and who later seemed to have no recollection of that outpouring of forgiveness and the generous, sweeping understanding shown by his son), and his fraught relationship with his father. Memory, technology, parenting, vulnerability, dreams, and faulty recollections all shape the book's events and its characters. This was a fascinating, brief read. The sections felt somewhat disjointed, but the final portion of the book was lovely and drew the points of view and elements together. More Titles to Explore Ben Lerner is also the author of The Topeka School, Leaving the Atocha Station, 10:04, and The Hatred of Poetry. For more short books I've Bossily reviewed, please check out the titles at this link.

The historical fiction-writing gift that is Philippa Gregory entertwines the richly imagined stories of three women in fifteenth century England, offering unapologetic ambition, genius manipulation, revenge plots, dark arts, and drastic comeuppances in this fascinating novel. It's 1420 and Eleanor Cobham (a real figure, about whom little is known), in a terrific initial scene, willfully misunderstands her dying mother's last wish for her, rejecting the nunnery and heading to the royal court. She arrives at the court of Henry V hoping to simply marry well despite her common upbringing and lack of dowry. But she soon learns she has a knack for the ins and outs of court intrigue, understanding the layers of betrayals, motivations, and powerful moves. Working in a countess's household, Eleanor learns how to efficiently bend a man to a woman's will, how to manage men's outsized egos, and how to wield power without seeming to pull the strings. Eleanor rises through the ranks, grasping for more and more control and ultimately becoming Duchess of Gloucester--until she is accused of treason, witchcraft, and summoning the devil in order to kill a king, and she may lose all that she's built. Philippa Gregory builds a richly imagined proposed story for Eleanor, although little is known of Eleanor's actual life details. Most mentions of her, as with so many females in history, including medieval times, are focused upon her husband. (She is, notably, referred to in Shakespeare's historical play Henry VI, Part 2, as a ruthless striver.) Within the novel Gregory also entertwines the stories of two more women from history whose stories are only vaguely sketched through history, Countess Jacqueline of Hainaut, who here is Eleanor's happenstance mentor, and Margery Jourdemayne, a midwife and healer who was accused of witchcraft. Eleanor is unapologetically ambitious, cutthroat, and conniving. She is largely unsympathetic, yet I found myself rooting for a woman to outsmart all of the men who underestimated and aimed to control her. Gregory doesn't force a redemption arc for the singleminded, relentless, ruthless Eleanor, yet after a horror of a reckoning toward the end of the book, she eventually demonstrates valuable reflection that seems plausible. Philippa Gregory is so talented at bringing historical fiction, and particularly strong female characters, to life. I received a prepublication audiobook of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and William Morrow. The audiobook was fantastic; Gemma Whelan narrates (side note: she's the actress who played Yara Greyjoy in Game of Thrones) and also recorded a Q&A with Philippa Gregory that follows the author's note at the end of the book. All of this was fascinating extra material. More Books to Check Out I'm back in the Philippa Gregory world, baby! Philippa Gregory is the author of forty novels, including more than thirty historical fiction works. I haven't read a book by her in many years, but I loved The Other Boleyn Girl, The White Queen, The Queen's Fool, and The Boleyn Inheritance. You might also check out these Bossy historical fiction reads.

Anderson's debut novel offers satire and dark humor in a future where a corporate surrogate eliminates its workers' inefficiency due to childbearing. Our main protagonist is greedy, lazy, and far from introspective, yet I couldn't stop reading about her often petty, short-sighted, shallow motivations. Natalie is a young adult working at a soul-crushing job at a call center when she is offered what feels like the perfect opportunity for short-term sacrifice and long-term financial gain: she becomes the first corporate-sponsored surrogate mother. She's soon enlisted for a well-compensated ten-year period of heavily regulated pregnancy conditions and tasked with a goal of seven births, all so that the company's executives can build families without losing productivity due to physical challenges around conceiving and carrying babies. In between pregnancies Natalie is allowed fallow periods when she is wild, carefree, hedonistic, and able to pay for any distraction she chooses. She seesaws from periods of prescribed meal, exercise, meditation, propaganda-building, and sleep regimens when her every need is healthfully provided to weeks- and months-long free-for-alls in which she behaves as an unregulated young adult. Throughout her years of surrogate work for the corporation, Natalie has plenty of time to reflect upon the person she wants to be and the future she wants to live out, but does little of either. She is prickly and greedy, not particularly introspective, and not inclined to consider complex issues around responsibility, identity, motherhood, or her future. The story then involves a shocking shift in Natalie's circumstances--which initially felt jarring to me as a reader and makes the book feel almost like two disparate stories in one. After the shift, significant page time is spent within a commune--the farthest thing from Natalie's interest set, as has been clearly established for much of the book. The commune is strange and irresistible; what feel like naive approaches to community existence begin to feel less creepy and more peaceful to Natalie; the dirt, hard work, and constant togetherness break her down and the messy, communicative, often annoying structure make her accountable to others in a way that somehow her constantly monitored baby-carrying did not. There is nowhere to hide in any sense, and after trying to avoid productivity despite the commune's rules, Natalie ultimately develops some tendency toward reflection, begins to understand that she is answerable to others, and starts to determine her future's next steps for the first time. Natalie is keeping an enormous secret that seemed as though it was going to be the issue on which the story would ultimately turn, but that wasn't what occurred. Fallow drifts somewhat from the greedy corporate world stringently controlling women's childbearing to a female-driven community (which, by the way, also regulates childbearing), but I was intrigued by both sections of the story. The book is a darkly funny satire of capitalism within a plausible reality of hyperregulated systems around body autonomy, fertility, productivity, corporate party lines, and what happens if literally everything is for sale. Natalie is an unsympathetic character, yet she nevertheless kept me hooked, wondering what would happen. The tone of the book is playful yet dystopian, and while the story poses weighty issues, Anderson's treatment of them is far from earnest or solemn and feels satirical. This would make for an interesting book club discussion; the novel offers a lot to unpack. I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. More Novels to Explore Fallow is the author's debut novel. Certain aspects of the book call to mind Yesteryear. For more Bossy reads that involve dark humor, satire, or body autonomy, please check out the links here.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to the first in Philippa Gregory's Plantaganet and Tudor series, Royal Witch; I'm listening to Beth Lewis's Gold Rush-era mystery, The Rush; and I'm reading Ben Lerner's short novel Transcription. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Royal Witch (Plantaganet and Tudor #1) by Philippa Gregory It's 1420 and Eleanor Cobham arrives at the court of Henry V hoping to marry well despite her common upbringing and lack of dowry. But she soon learns she has a knack for the ins and outs of court intrigue, understanding the layers of betrayals, motivations, and powerful moves. Working in a countess's household, she learns how to bend men to a woman's will, how to manage men's outsized egos, and how to wield power without seeming to pull the strings. She rises through the ranks, grasping for more control--until she is accused of treason, witchcraft, and summoning the devil in order to kill a king. Philippa Gregory is the author of forty novels, including more than thirty historical fiction works. 02 The Rush by Beth Lewis It's 1898 and in Canada, the frenzy of the Gold Rush has taken hold of the frigid Yukon. Three women in Dawson City are trying to find their way. Kate is a journalist who has hurried hundreds of miles to town after an urgent letter from her sister. Martha's hotel is under threat from a local bully buying up all the property he can. And Ellen and her husband risked everything for the hope of gold--but any potential fortune is slipping through their fingers. When a young woman is found murdered, the lives of these three characters become intertwined, and finding the culprit will mean tangling with rough, greedy, determined men set on the wealth promised in the local waters. You might also like these other Bossy reads about the Gold Rush. 03 Transcription by Ben Lerner The narrator of Ben Lerner's short (144-page) novel has traveled to interview his 90-year-old mentor Thomas (who is also his best friend Max's father) and write what will be the art giant's final published interview. But when the narrator drops his phone in the hotel sink, he arrives at the interview without a way to record it--and is inexplicably unable or unwilling to reveal this fact. In Transcription, Lerner offers a novel in three parts, including the strange set of events that follow the smartphone fiasco--shaped by explorations of fathers and sons, of technology and memory, and of Covid-set difficulties.

Great Backlist Mystery and Suspense Reads You know what I love about a backlist roundup of great reads? They're all likely to be available at the library. If you like cozying up with some fall mystery reading like I am, make sure to check out these titles, if you haven't read them. These six four-star mysteries are all so good and so different--they were my favorites of the year a couple of years ago, and they're so solid that I thought I'd repost again. I hope you'll check them out if you're in the market for mystery and suspense. You might also like these other Greedy Reading Lists of Bossy mystery favorites. I'd love to hear about your favorite mystery reads! 01 The Witch Elm by Tana French Within a suspenseful mystery structure, French explores privilege, interconnectedness, and the many shades of gray that complicate her characters' fraught situations. A Tana French mystery is usually a good bet for me, and I plowed through The Witch Elm to find out what was happening under French's layers of story. In The Witch Elm, French dips her toe into exploring how luck, (sometimes blind) loyalty—and, in several instances, a shocking absence of guilt and potentially skewed sense of justice—shape lives and carry events. French is the author of six Dublin Murder Squad series titles: In the Woods, The Likeness--this is my favorite of hers, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, and The Trespasser. French has also written three books in the Cal Hooper series, The Searcher, The Hunter, and The Keeper. For my full review of this book, please see The Witch Elm. 02 The Lost Man by Jane Harper Harper's mysteries read like twisty character-driven Westerns set in Australia, and things aren’t always what they seem. I thought this was great. Nathan and Bub come together to grieve the loss of their brother Cam. Cam had been bothered by something before dying unexpectedly in the Australian outback desert, but was his death suicide--or did someone kill him? Nathan is no detective, but he owes it to Cam not to give up until he figures it out. Harper skillfully builds the pool of potential culprits for Nathan to examine in this story of uncovering truths, family history, loyalty, stubbornness, and love. Harper's books read like Westerns to me, and her sometimes spare tone suits the setting, the situations in which she places her characters, and the characters themselves. Things aren’t what they seem in The Lost Man, but Harper isn’t manipulative or tricky, either. I thought this was great. For my full review, please check out The Lost Man. And for more Bossy reviews of other Jane Harper books, please check out this link. 03 Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips Julia Phillips's interconnected stories follow in chapters that take place each month for a year after the disappearance of two girls on the edge of Russia. The rural Siberian settings are exquisitely wrought, with stark, rugged, lush landscapes serving as the backdrop for a mystery that shakes a small community. The story is as much about the varied cast of characters, the closed-off community, and the vivid sense of place Phillips imagines as it is about the mystery itself. It isn't a police procedural; this is a starkly beautiful book that happens to be a mystery. Disappearing Earth was Phillips's first book, and she built the story's pace steadily toward a crescendo. The ending doesn't necessarily provide all the answers, but Phillips provides enough pieces of the puzzle to create closure. You might also be interested in Julia Phillips's second book, Bear. 04 The Last Child by John Hart I loved John Hart's brusque, determined Clyde Hunt, the scrappy and unstoppable young Johnny Merrimon, the sinister underbelly of their rural North Carolina town, and basically everything about this intricate literary mystery-thriller. Hart knows how to masterfully build a story around unforgettable characters with layers they reluctantly reveal. I didn't expect the resolution Hart allows to unfold at the end. But I was in for whatever he was dishing up, and I was fascinated all along the way. I love Hart's imperfect, brave, relentlessly tough protagonists. He's a gifted storyteller. John Hart has also written many other books, including The Unwilling, The Hush, which is the second in the Johnny Merrimon series, and Redemption Road. (Note: I had difficulty reading the horrific cruelties perpetuated by multiple characters in Redemption Road.) For my full review of this book, please see The Last Child. 05 City of Windows (Lucas Page #1) by Robert Pobi I loved Pobi's mystery; the character of Lucas Page, a retired detective who is pulled back onto a case; and the smart commentary about gun ownership and responsibility. This was a really compelling mystery/thriller—with a smart underlying commentary about gun ownership, violence, and the factors complicating these issues, including societal malaise, ignorance often overpowering facts, and longstanding patterns of power and fear. I loved the balance of clues and revelations Pobi laid out; they didn’t make me feel manipulated or red-herringed to death. Lucas Page is a fantastic character (as are Whitaker, Kehoe, Erin, and Dingo). The elaborate climactic scene was creatively gruesome—and I felt realistic disgust as a result. I haven't yet read the second in this Lucas Page series, Under Pressure--and I didn't even realize this was a series until after the fact, this novel stands so well on its own. For my full review of this book, please see City of Windows. 06 Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich I love a small-town sheriff story, and Brian Panowich offers a nicely layered version in Bull Mountain. Clayton Burroughs is sheriff of a small town in North Georgia. But the rest of his family is a well-known, entrenched, powerful bunch of moonshiners (they operate in even darker avenues too) on and around Bull Mountain. Clayton's law enforcement career and the rest of the Burroughses' relentless lawbreaking make for difficult family dynamics and some impossible professional dilemmas. Panowich offers a story about a complicated family and sense of duty, with ruthless mountain gangsters, twists and turns, dark elements, interconnected stories, and quite an ending. I thought this was great. Panowich also wrote Like Lions and Hard Cash Valley, the next two books in this series. You might also like these Bossy small-town reads and novels that center around law enforcement officers.

I was completely hooked on the imagined details of the life of Irish folk heroine and female pirate Grace O'Malley. I ultimately loved the novel's unusual structure, which tracked back and forth in time and revealed more about the strong female protagonist at each turn. I fell hard for this slam dunk of a premise: A novel about a female pirate based on the life of Grace O’Malley, an Irish folk heroine who was legendarily willing to risk everything for her people. Yes, yes, and yes. In Lawhon's tale, Grace is born to take to the sea and lead her people. But her family's noble expectations are that she marry well and have babies. We follow Grace from her youth through midlife and into old age, as her life is upended by death, deceit, the insult of being an underestimated woman, male cruelty, and being kept from her true love. But Grace's uncanny sense of the sea and its moods, her undeniable fortitude, and her passion for and loyalty to her people allow her to lead her people through all manner of dangers. Lawhon frequently tracks back and forth through time, orienting the reader at the start of each chapter with a "Maiden," "Mother," or "Matriarch" header, the year the chapter's events took place, and Grace's age during that period. I would have imagined that this structure would have been jarring and potentially difficult to dive into, but after the first few sections I was fascinated by finding out pieces of the Grace O'Malley puzzle as Lawson filled in details, context, and increased the reader's understanding of Grace's motivations, impulses, and convictions. A few male characters are infuriating and easy to detest; Richard is worth swooning over (but Lawhon, thankfully, doesn't insert swooning into the story). The tone felt perfect to me for the imagined, detailed story of a strong woman who inspired folk devotion, and I loved reading the book. Grace's final moments were incredibly poignant; I loved her reflections on her very full, complicated, adventure- and challenge-filled life: Today Grace feels as though she is every version of herself. Still the young girl running barefoot in the waves. The mother fighting for her children. And the old woman, wistful at the end of a long, vibrant life. More Bossy Recommendations Ariel Lawhon is also the author of The Frozen River. Her novel Code Name Helène wasn't for me; I didn't finish that one. Check out these links for more Bossy reads about strong women, female pirates, or ocean voyages.

I was charmed by John Kenney's darkly funny, thoughtful novel about an obituary writer hitting rock bottom and reflecting on mortality, leaning on his friends, and finding unorthodox ways to embrace the messiness and wonder of life again. Awkard, endearing Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who's going through some things. He's gone downhill since his wife divorced him for her prior boyfriend, and now he's all but given up on love; his last blind date involved a woman who brought along her ex and explained that they were back together and she couldn't stay. Bud's work is currently subpar, and he feels less and less engaged with his life in general. All of this worsens when he accidentally publishes a joke version of his own obituary. Bud's few friends are concerned about him, his therapist urges him to explore unexamined feelings around his mother's death, which occurred when he was young--and now he's begun attending the funerals of strangers on weekends. Can anything help Bud learn how to live again? I See You've Called in Dead teetered just on the edge of too jokey for me, but Kenney skillfully pulled back from taking it too far by keeping a dark edge to his humor and mixing grief, the sobering reality of facing mortality, and bursts of laughter in one realistically messy and irresistible character arc for Bud. The dialogue is fantastic, and I repeatedly laughed out loud. I was charmed by this novel. I've been thinking about this story with great affection and considering all the people to whom I'll recommend it. John Kenney came to speak at a local Friends of the Library event and was as darkly funny and thoughtful as I had hoped and imagined he would be. His upcoming book (scheduled for publication in spring 2027) is nonfiction centered around his mother's life beyond the measly 74-word obituary version of her existence. I listened to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library. More Books to Explore John Kenney is also the author of Truth in Advertising, Talk to Me, Love Poems for People with Children, Love Poems for the Office, Love Poems for Anxious People, and Love Poems for Married People. He is a longtime contributor to The New Yorker magazine’s Shouts & Murmurs section. If you're interested in more Bossy reads that are darkly funny, check out these books. And for Bossy reads that explore issues around mortality, please check out these titles and book lists.

The Secrets We Hide offers what is for me the perfect blend of character development, layered interpersonal issues, and mystery twists and turns that never feel convoluted, plus other favorite Bossy elements: a small-town setting, a family legacy of police work, and a condensed, healthily paced timeline from the story's beginning to end. I was hooked on this novel. I love a story driven by a female investigator main protagonist, and in book one of this small-town mystery series, We Are All Guilty Here, officer Emmy Clifton came into her own. The situation at hand quickly became dark and twisted, and Slaughter built tension without red herrings or manipulation. In book two, now-Sheriff Emmy and her sister, ex-federal agent Jude Archer, respond to gunshots nearby and find a tragedy: local former cop Allison Vickery has been shot dead in her kitchen, and Allison's daughter has been shot and left for dead upstairs. Slaughter is skilled at reviewing the back story for Emmy and Jude for book two; their father, North Falls's longtime sheriff, died in book one, and their mother, who had long suffered from dementia, has recently passed away. But Emmy had been shouldering the caregiving, and Jude returns to town to Emmy's powerful resentment and anger. I loved the connection between these two strong women, their bickering, and, utimately, their momentary vulnerability. Jude is keeping personal secrets that would rock Emmy's world, but before she can confess to Emmy, the sisters must cope with abruptly leveled charges that their father was a crooked cop, that he made evidence in a drug bust disappear, and that much of what they knew to be true about the much-idolized man (at least on Emmy's part) is lies. Meanwhile Jude is coming to terms with the implications of her history in this town, and she's regretting some of her past choices that kept her away from Emmy. Some of the crime scene details were supremely gory, and the facts surrounding Allison's death turn out to be wholly tragic. Jude gets to use her FBI power and her general savviness to help move the case along, and Emmy ultimately, satisfyingly, asserts her leadership over her band of small-town cops--only some of whom are loyal to her when the novel begins. Most of the men in the story are misogynistic and easy to detest, with a few key exceptions. Domestic violence is pervasive and key to the story in various ways. (Jude's meeting with a man at the end of the book was fascinating and chilling in its implications.) I was hooked on this story. Slaughter offers her signature layered mystery, buoyed by character depth and interpersonal complications. This is the perfect mix of character development and personal lives and non-manipulative mystery twists. I listened to this novel as an audiobook through Libby and my public library. More Books to Explore The first title in the North Falls series is We Are All Guilty Here. Please also check out these other Bossy mystery reviews and book lists.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Ariel Lawhon's newest novel about a female Irish pirate that's based on the life of a real woman, The Pirate Queen; I'm listening to the second in Karin Slaughter's North Falls mystery series about a female sheriff and her ex-FBI agent sister, The Secrets We Hide; and I'm listening to John Kenney's novel about an obituary writer learning to live again, I See You've Called in Dead, before I go hear the author speak this week. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon I clearly fell for this slam dunk of a premise: A novel about a female pirate based on the life of Grace O’Malley, an Irish folk heroine who was legendarily willing to risk everything for her people. Yes, yes, and yes. In Lawhon's tale, Grace is born to take to the sea and lead her people. But her family's noble expectations are that she marry well and have babies. Her life is upended by death, deceit, the insult of being an underestimated woman, male cruelty, and being kept from her true love. But Grace's uncanny sense of the sea and its moods, her undeniable fortitude, and her passion for and loyalty to her people allow her to lead her people through all manner of dangers. Ariel Lawhon is also the author of The Frozen River. Her novel Code Name Helène wasn't for me; I didn't finish that one. 02 The Secrets We Hide (North Falls #2) by Karin Slaughter I love a story driven by a female investigator main protagonist, and in book one of this small-town mystery series, officer Emmy Clifton came into her own. The situation at hand quickly became dark and twisted, and Slaughter built tension without red herrings or manipulation. In book two, Sheriff Emmy Clifton and her sister, ex-federal agent Jude Archer respond to gunshots nearby and find a tragedy: local former cop Allison Vickery has been shot dead in her kitchen, and her daughter has been shot and left for dead upstairs. Slaughter offers her signature layered mystery, buoyed by character depth and interpersonal complications. I'm completely hooked on this story. I'm listening to this novel as an audiobook through Libby and my public library. The first title in this series is We Are All Guilty Here. 03 I See You've Called in Dead by John Kenney Awkard, endearing Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who's going through some things. He's gone downhill since his wife divorced him for her prior boyfriend, and now he's all but given up on love; his last blind date involved a woman who brought her ex along and explained that they were back together and she couldn't stay. His work is currently subpar, and he feels less and less engaged with his life in general. All of this worsens when he accidentally publishes a joke version of his own obituary. Bud's few friends are concerned about him, his therapist urges him to explore unexamined feelings around his mother's death when he was young--and now he's begun attending the funerals of strangers on weekends. Can anything help Bud learn how to live again? I'm listening to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library. John Kenney is coming to speak at an upcoming Friends of the Library event; I can't wait to attend! If you're interested in books that explore issues around mortality, please check out these titles and book lists.

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

In Mandel's newest dystopian novel she presents two worlds, one lawless and one bound by constant surveillance, and she drops characters and their doppelgängers in and out of each. I was fascinated by this melancholy, layered story and its irresistible main protagonist. It's the year 2030 and the United States has collapsed. Ari Waker has just been released from prison after serving a decades-long sentence, and she emerges to a nation in turmoil where many scrape and scramble to get by. But her first night out at a California party with her new roommate Gloria holds more than a carefree, boozy romantic tryst with a stranger. The evening's inexplicable appearances and disappearances of partygoers--or was it their doppelgängers?--and strange, out-of-this-world occurrences puzzle Ari for years to come. When figures from that night begin showing up in Ari's life in rural Ohio and again when she moves to Paris, she questions what she knows to be real, even as she begins to recognize an undeniable interconnectedness. Through a spectacularly disastrous teleportation experiment and its aftermath, Mandel offers two versions of a future nation: one fractured, warring, and full of upheaval, and another bound by the Service, its order dictated by widespread peer reporting and surveillance. Neither is presented as more desirable than the other; both existences for our characters are complicated and full of danger. In each version, we witness haunting shadows, echoes, and repeated images: threads of similar characters, disparate conflicts around freedom, and sometimes life-and-death struggles against the ruling forces. The State was a malevolent weight on their lives. It was a low-level fear that never entirely left him, it was black cars moving too slowly down sunlit streets, unsmiling plainclothes agents in pairs, drones gliding quietly through the air above him, a constant possibility of disaster. Sometimes people he knew disappeared and he never saw them again. We see multiple characters' quantum doubles' lives in each imagined world--their uncertainty, their jarring encounters with those they think they know (but who merely look like those from another existence, whether they are appearing and disappearing or established within their environment), and their reckoning with and fight to understand their places in the world. There is a melancholy air throughout the book, and even Mandel's magnificently imagined elements (teleportation, multiverse, doppelgängers, the magnificence and potential disaster of science, and bending an unyielding environment to one's will) occur within the novel's measured pace, as though in a gray haze and without any whizbang trappings. Ari is a doer: she doesn't settle for accepting her current situation. She is sometimes guided by her premonitions and ability to predict events. (Does this stem from her existence in two universes? It's unclear, but it's handy here.) She digs, she pursues, she considers, and she takes action. We ultimately understand that in both of her worlds, this clever main protagonist has taken practical, creative problem-solving to a poignant, lovely, satisfying new level. Mandel's novel feels like a gray, quiet atmosphere; the surface may feel calm, but complex genius, evil, or generous machinations are wildly at work under the surface. The interconnectedness and varied existences of similar characters throws a light on how a wild, lawless environment or a rigid lack of freedom might shape a person and their environment. I was intrigued by the characters' moral and behavioral consistencies and their differences across worlds. What has built them, what has buoyed them, what has threatened to break them? I was fascinated as always by the world Mandel has constructed. Yes to all of Mandel's literary fiction, science fiction, speculative fiction, dystopian works! *Note that other readers have strongly suggested reading The Singer's Gun and The Glass Hotel before reading this work because of this book's ties to those works and the whole Mandel multiverse. However, I did not, and I was still fascinated by this book. More Titles to Check Out Emily St. John Mandel is also the author of Sea of Tranquility, Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel, The Singer's Gun, and other novels.

Bannister's psychological mystery sets up an imminent death on the tracks, then takes the reader back and forth in time to share characters' back stories, faults and failings, and interconnectedness. An omniscient narrator turns the mirror back on the reader at times. The structure of Five is key to its impact. While the human condition is fragile and while everyone does have a story and while we do not know what goes on behind closed doors while we are judging books by their covers, et cetera, et cetera, you have known since the beginning, since you got to this station this morning, that there are five main characters and one of them will die. Five begins in medias res, with five disparate characters waiting for a train. The omniscient narrator speaks directly to the reader to explain that. unbeknownst to the characters, one of the five will die when the train arrives. But before we find out which of the potential demises the story is headed toward, the novel tracks back through the lives of each character--in some cases also fast-forwarding to the future (a spoiler, as we can therefre eliminate those characters from potential imminent death in the present-day timeline). For surely you have learned by now, from the lives of our five passengers, that life and death happen...because they do, in the way that they do. Life and death happen regardless of what you think or guess or put in your online review or dream of or work for or choose or want. Or deserve. Each of the protagonists is far from perfect; selfishness, chance, missteps, and other circumstances shape each of their lives--and some characters' paths intersect before the fateful moments at the station. None of them is particularly likable, but each of their stories felt compelling. An omniscient narrator slides in and out of the story, addressing the reader at times, posing food for thought, foreshadowing, and hinting at key issues. The reader is repeatedly challenged to consider prejudices, assumptions, and preferences in wishing, as the narrator assumes, for one character's demise over another. This didn't resonate strongly with me as I didn't prefer any of the characters. The novel leans toward more psychological than thriller, and the timeline and story structure are key to its effect. The culminating event, the character's death, occurs in the brief five minutes at the station (slightly extended, because the train is late), but the true tales are told, and the meat of the novel lies, in each character's back story. I listened to this novel as an audiobook through Libby and my public library. It's narrated by a great cast: Kristin Atherton, Clare Corbett, George Naylor, Marlowe Chan-Reeves, Theo Solomon, and Juliet Stevenson. More Books to Check Out Ilona Bannister is also the author of When I Ran Away. Check out these other Bossy mystery reviews and lists!

Fitzgerald recounts various scenes from his gritty, disrupted childhood, shares the chosen family he forms working long-term at a bar, explains his body dysmorphia, and tells the reader how he tries to be a good person in the world. I found his stories intriguing, but for me the essay format made the book feel somewhat disjointed. In his memoir-in-essay-form Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Isaac Fitzgerald traces his life from his unlikely conception (his parents were married...but to other people, and each parent was using birth control during their affair, making his existence somewhat of a miracle), through a volatile childhood, to a drifting young adulthood. He doesn't pull punches, noting his gritty young existence surrounded by violence, uncertainty, and a lack of structure. His path as a young adult is unconventional and at times he lives on the fringes of societal norms. Yet he remains thoughtful about his place in the world, he struggles with body dysmorphia, and he tries to forgive his parents' many failings. The book is a collection of essays, and it therefore felt somewhat disjointed to me as a life story. Fitzgerald has lived in a homeless shelter; he was abused by his father; his mother's mental illness and frequent emotional roller coaster made him feel perpetually unmoored. He bartended and formed a chosen family among his coworkers that lasted for years. His account of his time in Thailand was one of the most fascinating portions for me. He also delved into participating in porn productions as what felt like a somewhat lighthearted experiment that he abandons after a time. A significant chunk of the book concerns his experience in the Catholic church, his parents' jobs within that institution, and the haunting, horrific worldwide revelations about the organization's systemic abuse of children. But this felt somewhat at a distance for me as a reader because it feels so for Fitzgerald, who thankfully did not witness or experience such devastating acts--but does mention what might have been a close call in his youth. Ultimately the memoir as a whole felt somewhat chaotic and disconnected to me--dipping in and out of political views, too-brief self-reflection, body shame whose mentions emerge relatively late in the book, and general, positive notions about being kind and standing up against others if they spew hateful views. I was intrigued that Fitzgerald recounts some of his key youthful life experiences at the end of the book. I might have appreciated having the specific context early on, but the recollections do carry weight in their late presentation. I listened to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library. In November, I'm going to hear Isaac Fitzgerald speak at a library foundation event. More Books to Check Out Fitzgerald's newest book is the nonfiction American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed. You might want to check out these other Bossy nonfiction favorites and memoir favorites.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Sarah Anderson's debut novel about a corporation's surrogate mother, a darkly humorous sendup of the ultimate capitalist state, Fallow; I'm listening to Ilona Bannister's fascinatingly structured novel of five characters on a train platform, one of whom will soon die, Five; and I'm listening to Isaac Fitzgerald's memoir-in-essays, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Fallow by Sarah Anderson Natalie is in a soul-crushing job at a call center when is offered what feels like the perfect opportunity for short-term sacrifice and long-term financial gain: she becomes the first corporate-sponsored surrogate mother. She's soon enlisted for a ten-year period of heavily regulated pregnancy conditions and tasked with a goal of seven births, all so that the company's executives can build families without losing productivity due to physical challenges around conceiving and carrying babies. In between pregnancies Natalie is allowed fallow periods when she is wild, carefree, hedonistic, and able to pay for any distraction she chooses. She seesaws from periods of prescribed meal, exercise, meditation, propaganda-building, and sleep regimens to weeks- and months-long free-for-alls where she is an unregulated young adult. Throughout her years of surrogate work for the corporation, she has plenty of time to reflect upon the person she wants to be and the future she wants to live out. This is a darkly funny satire of capitalism within a plausible reality of hyperregulated systems around body autonomy, fertility, productivity, corporate party lines, and what happens if literally everything is for sale. This is the author's debut novel. 02 Five by Ilona Bannister Five begins in medias res, with five disparate characters waiting for a train. The omniscient narrator speaks directly to the reader to explain that. unbeknownst to the characters, one of the five will die when the train arrives. But before we find out which of the potential demises the story is headed toward, the novel tracks back through the lives of each character--in some cases also fast-forwarding to the future (a spoiler, as we can therefre eliminate those characters from potential imminent death in the present-day timeline). Each of the protagonists is far from perfect; selfishness, chance, missteps, and other circumstances shape each of their lives--and some characters' paths intersect before the fateful moments at the station. I'm listening to this novel as an audiobook through Libby and my public library. Ilona Bannister is also the author of When I Ran Away. 03 Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional by Isaac Fitzgerald In his memoir-in-essay-form Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Isaac Fitzgerald traces his life from his unlikely conception (his parents were married...but to other people, and each parent was using birth control during their affair), through a volatile childhood, to a drifting young adulthood. He doesn't pull punches, recounting a gritty young existence surrounded by violence, uncertainty, and a lack of structure. His path as a young adult is unconventional and at times he lives on the fringes of societal norms. Yet he remains thoughtful about his place in the world, struggles with body dysmorphia, and tries to forgive his parents' many failings. I'm listening to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library. Fitzgerald's newest book is the nonfiction American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed. In November, I'm going to hear Isaac Fitzgerald speak at a library foundation event.

Bossy Favorites of the Month I've had a great reading month, and I hope you have too. Here are my six Bossy favorite reads of September. We've got a dark fantasy sequel, the first in a science fiction series, the first in a historical fiction mystery series, a feminist mythological retelling, captivating and strange literary historical fiction, and edgy contemporary fiction. Have you read any of these titles? What were some of your favorite reads this month? 01 Dead Beat (Ninth House #3) by Leigh Bardugo The third and final installment of Bardugo's Ninth House dark fantasy series offers more gritty corruption, seemingly insurmountable challenges, the threat of the entirety of hell's wrath, wonderfully morbid humor, some hard-won romance, and a ragtag group of loyal allies bent on thwarting the spread of evil. In the first two books in this series we met Alex Stern, who was offered a new start after surviving a mysterious multiple homicide. She became an unlikely member of the Yale freshman class, but the darkness of her past was matched only by the danger of the magic and rituals being used by the secret societies she was meant to be monitoring. In Dead Beat, Alex, now with a ragtag group of loyal allies, must figure out how to close the gates to hell--while fending off the nefarious Yale faculty members, malicious family members, and random demons out to make sure they fail. Dead Beat explores fate, reinvented futures, revenge, and redemption. Bardugo writes dark-tinged fantasy better than almost anyone, and she allows for romance between social-outcast heroes in a gritty world, so that it never feels like romantasy. I'm in for all the Bardugo books I can get my hands on. Leigh Bardugo is the author of the first two books in this series, Ninth House and Hell Bent, as well as The Familiar, the Shadow and Bone series, the King of Scars duology, and other books. For my full Bossy review, please check out Dead Beat. 02 Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati Clytemnestra is often depicted as a villain. Here, her layered, sympathetic motivations are revealed. Trained as a warrior and now a queen, she must cope with brutality and frustrating circumstances in this tale of power, love, and vengeance. Clytemnestra was born a Spartan princess (sister of the beautiful Helen--later "of Troy") who married for love, then was married off against her will by her father to cruel Agamemnon, who killed her first husband--and her child. She becomes queen in her adopted land, raises Agamenon's children, and suffers another devastating loss. She rules throughout her husband's absence during the years-long battle of Troy, building up strength, eliminating those who would betray her, trusting unlikely allies, and biding her time for her ultimate revenge. Casati allows us to understand Clytemnestra's motivations, her growing ferocity, her undying loyalty, and how her training as a warrior shapes her life, her personality, and the path of her future. This is a feminist retelling of a notorious figure in Greek mythology who is often painted as a villain. (In the Odyssey, Agamemnon's ghost tells Odysseus about his death at Clytemnestra's hands.) Here, we see a more sympathetic and layered view of her sometimes ruthless actions, shaped by her love for her children and her refusal to bend to men's wills. Odysseus appears in the story, a faulted figure problematically at odds with Clytemnestra and her goals. For my full review of this book please see Clytemnestra. 03 Moss'd in Space (Moss'd #1) by Rebecca Thorne I love a sci-fi story about a ragtag space gang trying to salvage a desperate situation. The first in Thorne's series delivers charming, heartwarming adventure and a cast of characters I can't wait to spend more time with in book two. In Rebecca Thorne's cozy sci-fi adventure Moss'd in Space, it's sometime after the year 90,000, and Torian's years of saving have finally allowed her to buy a spaceship. Now she'll finally be able to take her sister to a distant planet where the air quality will allow her to live longer than her current grim estimate. Torian just has to convince her sister to come along...and get her centuries-abandoned, moss-covered ship in working order. But the moss all over the spaceship is sentient, bossy, and suffering emotionally from having been left alone for so many years. It's also been busy advancing its significant capabilities. When Moss ends up face to face with the loved one who left it centuries earlier--who is key to understanding the ship and how to facilitate Torian's mission--it's not inclined to forgive and forget. This is charming, creative, and wonderfully strange. I loved how much warmth Thorne injected into this story; bighearted sci-fi is my absolute favorite type. The worldbuilding and Thorne's various creatures and their histories were intriguing. I loved the story's coziness and tone, which assured me that everything was going to work out. Moss's dry delivery was somewhat reminiscent of Murderbot. And the cliffhanger was delightful. I can't wait to read book two. Rebecca Thorne is the author of many other books, including Can't Spell Treason Without Tea. The next title in this series, Moss Effect, is scheduled for publication next spring. For my full review, please check out this link. 04 The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #1) by Laurie R. King The first mystery in King's 19-book series builds an irresistibly layered professional partnership and personal, friends-like-family bond between Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. The story's detail, pacing, plot, and character development are all fantastic. I look forward to reading more titles in this series. It's 1915 and Sherlock Holmes is bored out of his mind and languishing in retirement...until he happens to meet 15-year-old Mary Russell on the Sussex Downs. She's curious, clever, doesn't mince words, and isn't concerned about social niceties. Holmes is drawn back into a vibrant, exciting life by Mary's promising intellect--and her initially vague interest in his extensive knowledge and methods of investigation. Soon he is teaching Mary all he knows, and she is reluctantly absorbing his information, then adding her own observations. Soon they're faced with the urgent mystery of a senator's kidnapped daughter, and they work together to solve the case. Mary shows herself to quickly be growing into Holmes's equal. It's satisfying to witness Holmes's initially begrudging acceptance of Mary's instincts and talent as his own abilities wane with his age, then to see the duo's heartfelt, eccentric, growing father-daughter bond. I loved the steady but patient pacing, which allows for rich character development, particularly regarding Holmes and Mary (the Watson characterization is also fantastic, although limited). The story's details of the time and the setting are fantastic, the plot twists are intriguing, and the complicated, shifting dynamic between Mary and Sherlock is endearing. The layered, sinister long game aimed at besting Holmes is chilling and wonderfully imagined. You can find more Bossy mystery reviews here. Please click here for my full review of this title. 05 Field Notes from an Extinction by Eoghan Walls Walls uses a journal structure to draw the reader into a singular story I can't stop thinking about. In Field Notes from an Extinction, we witness the innermost thoughts of a grumbly hermit ornithologist who is thrust into a parenting role, then must face a pirate queen out for revenge on British colonial rulers amid the Irish Potato Famine. Ignatius Green is sent by the Royal Society to the remote Irish island of Tor Mor to study some of the last Great Auks left in the world. Meanwhile the potato famine ravages the mainland Irish population and all order seems lost. A trickle-down effect begins to break down the strict systems Ig has imposed upon his wild surroundings. When the ruffian local suppliers row over not only his (rifled-through, partially stolen) supplies but also a small, feral child (he eventually learns that her name is Bridget), all hope seems to be lost of continuing his seemingly doomed mission of observation, documentation, and providing an orderly report of the endangered birds. Add to the complicated situation that Bridget's mother is said by the untrustworthy rowboat operators to be the most dangerous, fabled, infamous pirate in the land, Grace O'Malley, rumored to be carrying out renegade justice on the British officers kicking Irish tenant families out of their homes, leaving the people to starve. I was delighted by the tone, the structure, and the unexpected evolution within Field Notes from an Extinction. I can't stop thinking about this book. You might also like these books set in Ireland, books about found family, or books about island life. For my full review, please see Field Notes from an Extinction. 06 Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash This was my favorite read of the month! Cash crafts a delightfully campy, oddball novel around a family of characters who for various reasons abandon social acceptability as they aim to find fulfillment, solve a mystery, discover compatibility, seek purpose, and coexist together. This is a darkly humorous, sometimes quirky tale that's edgy and provocative. The reader can tell what Catherine and Bud Flynn cannot: their open marriage is either directly or indirectly further destroying their dysfunctional family. Cash actively makes over-the-top choices that are likely to cause discomfort. The many edgy elements along with the open marriage that pushes the family off balance in the first place mean that nothing here is considered taboo. Cash commits her protagonists to unsympathetic behavior and uses their out-of-bounds acts and words to illustrate her characters' multifaceted abandonment of societal norms and acceptability. In some ways, the messy, chaotic Flynn family reminded me of the sometimes feral Herdman family in The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever. The stakes of the story's situations are quite high, but the tone of Lost Lambs assures the reader that no untimely deaths or horrors will occur (outside of the lunacy and tragedies Cash has already put in place). This was surprisingly heartwarming and wonderfully sardonic. You might also like these edgy books, darkly funny books, oddball, and bonkers books, as well as books about families. For my full review, please check out Lost Lambs.

Cline crafts a poignant, darkly funny, and uncomfortably, beautifully spot-on-feeling novel about a man with dementia as the clock runs out. He increasingly loses his grasp on the facts but urgently reconnects with pivotal figures from his past and considers his rapidly unraveling, impenetrable reality while revealing to the reader powerful, universal truths. Leave the party right when you think, I'm having such a nice time at this party. David is on a private plane headed for Switzerland. His assistant Cody has all of the details in hand for the retired executive who is traveling to his final stop. David's perspective makes clear that he is having trouble tracking details, recalling past events, and piecing together the entirety of his situation, and that he is headed to Switzerland with a plan to die before he is unable to make that decision due to dementia. And here, in this shoulder season of life, they all told you to focus on the present moment. He could hardly do otherwise. They should have taught you this skill earlier--instead they'd sprung it on you, a jarring correction to the original mandate. What will it be like when you're gone? It will be pretty much the same as before you got here. He develops methods to cope with his lapses in memory, inability to recall logistics, and suspicions of secrets being kept from him. He seeks familiar signposts, indicators of his past and present, but often finds himself in unknown territory without knowledge of how he got there and why. He regrets having centered his life and identity so solely around work, and he attempts to reconcile with a childhood friend, reconnect with his daughter, and forge human connections before the end of his life. The poignant premise is also darkly funny at times, often absurd, and frequently breathtakingly, messily unfiltered, alternating between rude, sly, touching, heartbreaking, and silly. ...people didn't often torture themselves over their mistakes, didn't throw themselves in front of trains out of moral shame.... it was more about not wanting to be uncomfortable in the world. I'm fascinated by books that explore mortality--see the link below for more Bossy reads in this vein--and I found Switzy powerful and irresistible. I received a prepublication audio version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. I also received a copy of this book through my monthly Books Are Magic subscription. More Books to Explore Emma Cline is also the author of The Girls (a book I rated with four Bossy stars when I read it ten years ago, before this blog existed) and The Guest. You might also want to check out these Bossy reads that center around mortality.

This slim work of nonfiction packs a punch; Alexander (also the author of the exquisite memoir The Light of the World) delves into matters of race, inequality, history, art, and the power of poetry. I found myself wishing for more pages and deeper explorations of these pivotal issues. We send signals across vast distances, hoping to connect. Dr. Elizabeth Alexander draws her book's title from the quote above, which is from a 1968 poem by Muriel Rukeyser. In this slim work of nonfiction (the audiobook is less than three hours long; the print version is 144 pages), the poet, literary scholar, former Yale and Columbia professor, and writer positions thoughts, reflections, and calls to action within the framework of our present-day world, its many challenges--and opportunities for change. Alexander often uses poetry excerpts from various sources as the framework for her passionate observations. She evokes the words of James Baldwin, recounts some of her late husband's life story in "My Refugee," notes her time speaking at President Obama's inauguration, digs into our nation's more distant past and inequalities, and also brings up recent events like the January 6 riots. The book is so short, I wished for more pages, more words, and more depth for these intensely powerful concepts; I wanted additional exploration and further wise reflections from Alexander, and I yearned for her to spend more time on the enormous issues that continue to shape our country. The print version of Signals Across Vast Distances includes works of art that Alexander finds pivotal; I lacked that visual aspect in the audiobook. I received a prepublication audio version of this title, which is read by the author, courtesy of NetGalley and Dreamscape Media. More Works to Check Out Elizabeth Alexander is also the author of the exquisitely beautiful memoir The Light of the World. For more Bossy reviews of nonfiction reads, please check out the lists and titles at this link.

The third and final installment of Bardugo's Ninth House dark fantasy series offers more gritty corruption, seemingly insurmountable challenges, the threat of the entirety of hell's wrath, wonderfully morbid humor, some hard-won romance, and a ragtag group of loyal allies bent on thwarting the spread of evil. This was friendship, he supposed. You learned the rhythms of hurt and apology. You crashed through each other's lives and hoped for grace in the final tally of the damage. In the first two books in this series, Ninth House and Hell Bent, we met Alex Stern, who was offered a new start after surviving a mysterious multiple homicide. She became an unlikely member of the Yale freshman class, but the darkness of her past was matched only by the danger of the magic and rituals being used by the secret societies she was meant to be monitoring. Alex is a brave, scowling, and unapologetic figure who has literally escaped from hell, saving her love interest Darlington in the process. In Dead Beat, Alex, now with a ragtag group of loyal allies, must figure out how to close the gates to hell--while fending off the nefarious Yale faculty members, malicious family members, and random demons out to make sure they fail. Dead Beat explores fate, reinvented futures, revenge, and redemption. Bardugo writes dark-tinged fantasy better than almost anyone, and she allows for romance between social-outcast heroes in a gritty world, so that it never feels like romantasy. I'm in for all the Bardugo books I can get my hands on. I listened to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library. More Leigh Bardugo Books Leigh Bardugo is the author of the first two books in this series, Ninth House and Hell Bent, as well as The Familiar, the Shadow and Bone series, the King of Scars duology, and other books.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading the newest postapocalyptic novel by one of my must-read authors, Emily St. John Mandel, Exit Party; I'm reading a darkly humorous, poignant book from the perspective of a man with dementia facing his last days, Emma Cline's Switzy; and I'm listening to Leigh Bardugo's newest dark fantasy novel, the third in her Ninth House series, Dead Beat. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel It's the year 2030 and the United States has collapsed. Ari Waker is out after serving a decades-long jail sentence, and she emerges to a nation in turmoil where many scrape and scramble to get by. But her first night out at a California party with her new roommate Gloria holds more than a carefree, boozy romantic tryst. Inexplicable appearances and disappearances of partygoers--or was it their doppelgangers?--and strange, out-of-this-world occurrences puzzle Ari for years to come. But when figures from that night begin showing up in Ari's life in rural Ohio and again when she moves to Paris, she questions what she knows to be real, begins to recognize an undeniable interconnectedness, and reckons with her place in the world. Emily St. John Mandel is also the author of Sea of Tranquility and Station Eleven. 02 Switzy by Emma Cline David is on a private plane headed for Switzerland. We learn that he's a retired executive, and that his past years of work have led to his borrowing of the transportation to his final stop, as they say. David's perspective makes clear that he is having trouble tracking details, recalling past events, and piecing together the entirety of his situation, and that he is headed to Switzerland with a plan to die before he is unable to make that decision due to dementia. The poignant premise is also darkly funny at times, often absurd, and frequently breathtakingly, messily unfiltered, alternating between rude, sly, touching, heartbreaking, and silly. I received a prepublication audio version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. I also received a copy of this book through my monthly Books Are Magic subscription. Emma Cline is also the author of The Girls (a book I rated with four Bossy stars when I read it ten years ago, before this blog existed) and The Guest. 03 Dead Beat (Ninth House #3) by Leigh Bardugo In the first two books in this series, Ninth House and Hell Bent, we met Alex Stern, who was offered a new start after surviving a mysterious multiple homicide. She became an unlikely member of the Yale freshman class, but the darkness of her past was matched only by the danger of the magic and rituals being used by the secret societies she was meant to be monitoring. Alex is a brave, scowling, and unapologetic figure who has literally escaped from hell, saving her love interest Darlington in the process. Now she and her ragtag group of allies must figure out how to close the gates to hell--while fending off the nefarious Yale faculty members, family members, and random demons out to make sure they fail. I'm listening to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library. Leigh Bardugo is the author of the first two books in this series, Ninth House and Hell Bent, as well as The Familiar, the Shadow and Bone series, the King of Scars duology, and other books.

Who likes a little rock with their reading? Since I first made this list, I've read even more great books that have music at their hearts, and it always strikes me how uniquely difficult a task it must be for an author to convey the power of fictitious music. Here are six of my favorite fiction works that have to do with rock and roll, writing songs, performing, and the musician and band dynamics that keep it all wonderfully unpredictable and complicated and weird. For this edition of the list, I traded out one title for a more recent favorite (number 3) that I liked even more. What other rockin' books should I add to my to-read list? 01 Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell In Utopia Avenue, Mitchell takes us through the twists and turns of a fictional psychedelic British '60s band on its rocky rise to popularity, particularly through exploring its members' crises, joys, fears, and triumphs. It could have felt a little too abstract to read about the inspiration for made-up lyrics and melody, instrument technique, and imagined musical highlights on stage. (The fictional band focus reminded me, in a good way, of Daisy Jones & the Six, mentioned below.) But Mitchell handles all of this deftly and made me care about a singer connecting with an audience, the cathartic heartbreak-writing of songs, and the magic spark of a performance. Utopia Avenue contains endless imagined cameos, fictional adventures, and gems of wisdom from real-life musicians, authors, and artists--not to mention wild parties, betrayals, leaps of faith, breakups, and tragedy. Mitchell expertly builds the four band members into rich characters you're rooting for through their individual ups and downs as well as through the triumphs and setbacks of the band. If you like Mitchell's beautiful, offbeat, sometimes meandering and tough-to-pin-down stories, you'll likely love this almost 600-page book. He doesn't provide too easy or neat of an ending, but it feels fitting and left me satisfied. This was a really captivating story that kept me intrigued throughout. For my full review of Utopia Avenue, click here. 02 The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez On the surface, the main players in this light fiction story by Abby Jimenez are too outrageously beautiful, obscenely masculine or exquisitely feminine, with inordinately glamorous careers. One of them donated bone marrow to a stranger before becoming a burgeoning rock star. The other is a shockingly talented artist who abandoned the creation of new work after an incredibly painful loss. I worried that they would be insufferable martyrs I wouldn't believe in. But Jimenez offers an excellent setup for a romantic comedy with enough heartache that your teeth don't hurt from the sweetness. Jiminez provides the drama and angst and romance for picture-perfect escapism with a sexy center. I expected her to simply summarize the sexy parts, but no, she did not. Each chapter begins with a song title, and if you like the music, you can listen to the mix on Spotify. The author’s note about her inspiration for the book’s initial setup is heartwarming. For my full review of this book, see The Happy Ever After Playlist. 03 The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner Jennifer Weiner's newest novel offers a behind-the-scenes peek at the music business, songwriting, and the pressures of fame, layered with complications from clashing sisters, devastating tragedy, and a messy path toward reconciliation. Cassie and Zoe Greenberg are sisters who have always been opposites. Cassie, a musical prodigy, loved losing herself in and expressing herself through playing and singing, but avoided the limelight. Zoe dreamed of stardom since she was a child and was driven more by fame than the music itself. But Zoe realizes that Cassie is key to any musical future, and she convinces Cassie to join her on stage, beginning their meteoric climb to stardom. For one year when they're young adults, the sisters reach mindboggling heights of fame as the pop duo The Griffin Sisters--featured in Rolling Stone, performing on Saturday Night Live, and making videos for MTV. Then their run abruptly ended, and for the public, the reasons for their breakup were a mystery. Twenty years later, Zoe is a housewife and Cassie is a recluse who hasn't spoken to her sister at all. But when Zoe's headstrong daughter Cherry becomes determined to become a star, she digs into the past and forces a confrontation between the estranged sisters at last. This is a great behind-the-scenes look at the music business, musical creativity and songwriting processes, and body-image pressures on women earning a living by being in the limelight. Griffin Sisters also takes on deep familial conflicts, coping with loss and a devastating blow for future plans, lies and betrayals, and, finally, a messy but hopeful chance for reconciliation. For my full review, please check out The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits. 04 Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid “You have these lines you won’t cross. But then you cross them.... You’ve taken a big, black, bold line and you’ve made it a little bit gray. And now every time you cross it again, it just gets grayer and grayer until one day you look around and you think, There was a line here once, I think.” In Daisy Jones & the Six, Reid offers a fictionalized account (written as fictional interviews) of the meteoric rise of a 1970s band, their mesmerizing lead singer Daisy, the group's complicated interpersonal conflicts, and the band's mysterious breakup, which broke hearts around the world. I thought the interview format might possibly get tiresome, but Reid skillfully builds the story, the complex relationships, and the pushes and pulls of the characters’ lives. The structure allowed for fascinating point of view shifts, subtleties, and humor. Daisy Jones and the Six explores multiple layers of love and heartbreak, all against a fantastic backdrop of rock and roll and the bonds and stresses of a band and a relentlessly grueling tour life. I adored Camila and her love and faith and outlook on life, and I loved this book. Taylor Jenkins Reid is also the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Maybe In Another Life, After I Do, and other books. 05 Thank You, Goodnight by Andy Abramowitz There is danger in pining for people, in pining for things, in confusing who you are with what you want. You lose yourself in it. You lose yourself. In Thank You, Goodnight, Teddy Tremble, a likable, formerly famous musician meanders into an entertaining and unlikely career resurgence. "It Feels Like a Lie" was Tremble's big 1990s hit, and he never had another success. He's almost 40, he works at a law firm, and he's given up his old dreams. But when an old friend calls, he's faced with the classic "getting the band back together" temptation. Could he really be getting a second chance at stardom? Teddy's path isn't pat or too easy, Abramowitz's dialogue is sharp and funny, and watching Tremble finally grow into himself is satisfying. Abramowitz includes fun music references and nicely written scenes of the characters playing music. I imagine those could be tough to write in an engaging way when the reader obviously can't hear any of what the author is imagining. But he had me hooked. I really had fun reading this. 06 This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales “Sometimes people think they know you. They know a few facts about you, and they piece you together in a way that makes sense to them. And if you don't know yourself very well, you might even believe that they are right. But the truth is, that isn't you. That isn't you at all.” In Leila Sales's young adult book This Song Could Save Your Life, main protagonist Elise doesn't fit in at her high school, she can't quite figure out social conventions, and she constantly feels at a loss. But when she stumbles into a warehouse party full of misfits embracing their otherness, Elise begins to see that the world outside of her claustrophobic high school is enormous, strange, and possibly even wonderful. With the help of a new friend in a band, a disc jockey, a handful of free spirits, and her own newly discovered love of music, she begins to find her way. The first half of this book started off so perfectly and wonderfully that I considered abandoning all commitments in order to hide away and read it straight through. Some too-easy moments marred a little of the book's perfection for me, but I absolutely adore this author's voice and vision and am hereby willing to read anything else she writes.

Benjamin's speculative fiction sets two members of a heartbroken couple in an unforgiving climate, facing an unexplained phenomenon, and seeking the impossible: to turn back time and undo a tragedy that upended their lives. This is intriguing--as well as science-heavy, unique, patiently paced, and without a neat and tidy ending. In Chloe Benjamin's haunting, beautiful novel Under Story, Laurel is a biologist who studies fungi and is running from her past. She's hurting, and she's gotten as far away as possible from her home. Now she's working long hours outside of her profession, toiling in a kitchen at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. But as she settles into a new community, she is fascinated by an inexplicable glowing apparition in the Antarctic snow, which McMurdo residents call the Arc. Is the Arc simply a light, visible energy, or, as Laurel is beginning to imagine, possibly a portal to another time? When Laurel's lifelong love and ex-husband Eli arrives unexpectedly with other physicists to explore the Arc, Laurel wonders if he and she might find their way to each other again--at least in order to understand the mystery of the Antarctic phenomenon. Up to this point, I was completely hooked on the story and the mystery of the Arc as well as the past tragedy that collectively pull in Laurel and Eli. They enter into an unprecedented adventure, facing danger of the unknown and a significant call to bravery. Parts of the story are science-heavy, as the scientist-main protagonists try to understand a universe/antiuniverse structure they dream about and attempt to prove real; I ultimately didn't grasp portions of this reasoning, but that didn't diminish my enjoyment of the story. Conceptually, the next phases of the novel are intriguing; Eli and Laurel spend extensive page time in a Benjamin-created, unique world in which they grow younger and everything moves backward as compared to the universe where they were born. This premise felt surprisingly unmoored and unsettling, but it was certainly interesting. They share the hope of reversing time and then traveling back to their original world, thereby undoing the tragedy that occurred when Laurel and Eli were originally married. That intense desire to rework history carries them through various difficulties and surprising challenges. There are fascinating, strange elements (for example, the existence of another version of Eli and Laurel; and the manner in which humans are born and die in reverse--shiver shiver). But for me, the pacing of this section felt uneven as the story jumped around, and I struggled at times to continue reading. Ultimately, Laurel and Eli's quest yields mixed results. This felt realistic but also disappointing; as I read this hefty, 512-page book I had actively cheered on the outrageously ambitious, complicated roller coaster of a love-inspired if ill-fated plan. The couple's exploration of their past and revelations about their own relationships and key moments was a poignant and powerful aspect of the story. I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Putnam. More Books to Explore Chloe Benjamin is also the author of The Immortalists and The Anatomy of Dreams. You might want to also check out these other Bossy reviews of books that play with time.

The Taipei sights, sounds, heat, and tastes are the stars of Kuang's novel. Much of the study-abroad language immersion program felt expected; I most appreciated Lily's eventual examination of her own family's history and heritage and how she fits into it. Lily Chen is a college student who travels to Taiwan to study in an intensive language program along with many other Chinese American students. Lily and her roommate misjudge their living arrangements and suffer through unreliable plumbing and cramped quarters as they begin to turn on each other. Lily's classes are incredibly rigorous, and she is quickly exhausted from living without fluent language. Yet she yearns to feel more at home in this place that has helped define her family and culture. The novel is immersively set amid the delectable food, steamy weather, and bustling, busy city of Taipei. For me, the setting is the star of the novel. Taipei Story is a starting-to-come-of-age novel, although it doesn't dig into extensive character development or depth. For much of the story, little plot exists to move the tale along. We witness Lily's typical study-abroad experiences, but few aspects of them seemed particularly noteworthy. Lily is not sure of herself socially or romantically and is taken advantage of, suffers loneliness, is the victim of rumors, and experiences various awkward, painful young-adult missteps and unfortunate circumstances. Late in the book, Lily forces herself to stretch and explore the region, and the story's momentum improves. I was also interested in her examination of what she had been seeking from her Taiwanese experience, her eventual exploration of her family's history, and her own revised definition of personal success within the rigorous program. Most of the summer's interpersonal difficulties are fairly neatly resolved by the end. I listened to Taipei Story as an audiobook through Libro.fm. More Books to Check Out R. F. Kuang is also the author of Katabasis, Yellowface, The Poppy War, Babel, The Burning God, and The Dragon Republic.

Clytemnestra is often depicted as a villain. Here, her layered, sympathetic motivations are revealed. Trained as a warrior and now a queen, she must cope with brutality and frustrating circumstances in this tale of power, love, and vengeance. “You can’t have justice and everyone’s approval.” Clytemnestra was born a Spartan princess (sister of the beautiful Helen--later "of Troy") who married for love, then was married off against her will by her father to cruel Agamemnon, who killed her first husband--and her child. She becomes queen in her adopted land, raises Agamenon's children, and suffers another devastating loss. She rules throughout her husband's absence during the years-long battle of Troy, building up strength, eliminating those who would betray her, trusting unlikely allies, and biding her time for her ultimate revenge. Casati allows us to understand Clytemnestra's motivations, her growing ferocity, her undying loyalty, and how her training as a warrior shapes her life, her personality, and the path of her future. Is this what happens when one falls in love and marries? Clytemnestra wonders. Is this what a woman gives up? All her life, she has been taught courage, strength, resilience, but must those qualities be kept at bay with a husband? This is a feminist retelling of a notorious figure in Greek mythology who is often painted as a villain. (In the Odyssey, Agamemnon's ghost tells Odysseus about his death at his wife's hands.) Here, we see a more sympathetic and layered view of her sometimes ruthless actions, shaped by her love for her children and her refusal to bend to men's wills. Odysseus appears in the story, a faulted figure problematically odds with Clytemnestra and her goals. "Gods do not care about us. They have other concerns. That is why you should never live in the shadow of their anger. It is men you must fear. It is men who will be angry with you if you rise too high, if you are too much loved. The stronger you are, the more they will try to take you down." Casati shapes a rich setting. Clytemnestra's world is full of men who underestimate women, who threaten cruelty, and who are capable of destruction. The feminist tone of the novel doesn't feel out of step with an ancient time; it feels like warranted empowerment and long overdue justice. I loved this story. Most of the story moves at a healthy pace, and Clytemnestra's perspective shifts and changes as she is affected by the circumstances and challenges around her. I listened to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library. Olivia Vinall is the narrator, and she's wonderful. More Mythology Retellings Costanza Casati is also the author of Babylonia and The President Show. The "misunderstood queen" aspect of this story reminded me at times of the novel Cleopatra (although that story was modeled on a real-life queen rather than a mythological figure). For more titles that center around mythology, please check out the Bossy posts at this link.

The Books I'm Reading Now It's audiobook time! I'm listening to R. F. Kuang's newest novel, Taipei Story; I'm listening to the poet and writer Elizabeth Alexander's nonfiction book Signals Across Vast Distances; and I'm listening to Clytemnestra, Costanza Casati's reimagined story of a vilified figure from Greek mythology. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Taipei Story by R. F. Kuang Lily Chen is a college student who travels to Taiwan to study in an intensive language program along with many other Chinese American students. Lily and her roommate misjudge their living arrangements and suffer through unreliable plumbing and cramped quarters as they begin to turn on each other. Her classes are incredibly rigorous, and Lily is quickly exhausted from living without fluent language, and yet she yearns to feel more at home in this place that has helped define her family and culture. This is a coming-of-age novel that is immersively set amid the delectable food, steamy weather, and bustling, busy city of Taipei. I'm listening to Taipei Story as an audiobook through Libro.fm. R. F. Kuang is also the author of Katabasis, Yellowface, The Poppy War, Babel, The Burning God, and The Dragon Republic. 02 Signals Across Vast Distances: Essays and Tales by Elizabeth Alexander In this slim work of nonfiction, the poet, literary scholar, former Yale and Columbia professor, and writer Dr. Elizabeth Alexander positions thoughts, reflections, and calls to action within the framework of our present-day world and its many challenges and opportunities for change. She often uses poetry excerpts from various sources as the framework for her passionate observations. The print version includes works of art that Alexander finds pivotal; I'm lacking that visual aspect in the audiobook. I received a prepublication audio version of this title, which is read by the author, courtesy of NetGalley and Dreamscape Media. Elizabeth Alexander is also the author of the memoir The Light of the World. 03 Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati Clytemnestra was born a Spartan princess, married for love, then was married off against her will by her father to cruel Agamemnon, who killed her first husband--and her child. She becomes queen in her adopted land, raises Agamenon's children, and suffers another devastating loss. She rules throughout her husband's absence during the years-long battle of Troy, building strength, eliminating those who would betray her, trusting unlikely allies, and biding her time for her ultimate revenge. This is a feminist retelling of a notorious figure in Greek mythology who is often painted as a villain. (In the Odyssey, Agamemnon's ghost tells Odysseus about his death at his wife's hands.) Here, we see a more sympathetic and layered view of her sometimes ruthless actions, shaped by her love for her children and her refusal to bend to men's wills. I'm listening to an audiobook version of this title through Libby and my public library. Costanza Casati is also the author of Babylonia and The President Show. For more titles that center around mythology, please check out the Bossy posts at this link.

It's time for the foooood books! I love a memoir, I love reading about people doing what they love, I love good food, and I love reading the stories of people who are obsessed with food. The books listed here are some of my favorites in this category. I included two books by Ruth Reichl here. (Frankly I could have included a third, making this a 50 Percent Ruth Reichl List, but that felt a little aggressive.) If you've read Reichl's books, you may understand why this had to happen. If you like memoirs, you might want to also check out these Bossy Bookworm reads and Greedy Reading Lists. Have you read any of these books? I'd love to hear what you thought! And which other books should I add to my food memoir to-read list? 01 Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl Garlic and Sapphires may be my favorite foodie memoir of all. Ruth Reichl was editor in chief of Gourmet and a world-renowned food critic for The New York Times, and her tenure there is the focus of this book. Staying unrecognized as a food critic was essential to Reichl's ability to properly assess the level of service and the food quality everyday patrons would receive at any given restaurant, and she resorted to various disguises and decoy ploys to guard her anonymity. Her costuming and taking on of alternate personalities felt farcical, but I adored it. Reichl explores how one's appearance affects how others treat you--not a revolutionary concept, but I found it fascinating when applied to the class and financial factors involved with fine dining. She takes the snobbery out of food criticism, however, regularly visiting low-key restaurants as well. Reichl comes across as incredibly appealing and unassuming. She reveals absurdities and excesses in the restaurant world while clearly remaining the head of the Food Fan Club (I made that up, but she is a big food fan) and unfailingly celebrating the deep joy that good food, friendly company, and an appealing restaurant atmosphere can inspire. 02 The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber "It’s so hot that it steams in your mouth, and at first you eat it with just the tips of your teeth. Then the layers of crisp and sweet and soft intermingle, a series of surprises. It is so rich and dense that you can eat only a little bit, and then it is over and the knaffea is just a pleasant memory—like a lovely dream that you forget a few seconds after you wake." In The Language of Baklava, Abu-Jaber explores her heritage through describing in poetic terms meals and foods that are important to her. She reflects on what it means to be Jordanian-American, and through recounting her own journeys as well as her father's life, she comes to find peace with who she is and where she's been. Abu-Jaber made me hungry while drawing me into her history, with recipes special to her placed strategically throughout. Each of the foods she showcases is directly linked to her life in some way. The author writes beautifully, whisking the reader off to Jordan, to upstate New York, and back again, illustrating the melding of her cultures. The tone of the book is joyful and vibrant, and Abu-Jaber intermingles thoughts on faith and family (and conflicts related to both) by using food as the touchpoint for many of her life events. 03 Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain I love behind-the-scenes books, especially those about food. I wondered at first if Bourdain's (I'm paraphrasing) "I'm tough, I've been pretty screwed up at times, and I'm also sometimes shocking, so take me or leave me" attitude was going to overshadow the meat (see what I did there?) of the book, in which case I might have been tempted to abandon it. Bourdain does have sordid tales to tell, but he seems less puffed up over his kitchen war stories after the first section of the book, and that's when I felt I could settle into taking in his rich, attention-getting experiences. I found the sections about a day in the life of Bourdain's kitchen and a day in the life of a three-star kitchen to be the most captivating. I pledged after reading this book I wasn't going to eat fish on Sunday or Monday because of supply and delivery patterns (I did forget this, but now after rereading my original review I'm reminded again). I also had the post-book goal of trying to block from my mind most of the gross-out kitchen tales Bourdain told--and that plan of mine did, luckily, work, because I can still bring myself to eat at restaurants. I find myself retroactively feeling greater affection for this book than I did when initially reading it. I read Kitchen Confidential over fifteen years ago, well before I spent endless evenings happily watching multiple television series featuring Anthony Bourdain traveling the world, inserting himself into both familiar and previously unknown-to-him food stalls, restaurants with Michelin star ratings, and everything in between. I really fell for Bourdain watching him in action on television--witnessing his bristly manner and his unabashed adoration for the chefs and the kitchen staffs aiming to bring culinary magic to the plate. I found his framework of knowledge along with his wonder about the foods and cultures he was exploring irresistible. This book may have felt a little unpolished to me--but Bourdain himself was unabashedly rough around the edges too. The recent movie Tony based on Bourdain's young life is fantastic--who else has seen it? 04 A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg "When Molly Wizenberg's father died of cancer...she went to Paris, a city that held vivid memories of a childhood trip with [him]. She was supposed to be doing research for her dissertation, but more often, she found herself peering through the windows of chocolate shops, trekking across town to try a new pâtisserie, or tasting cheeses at outdoor markets, until one evening when she sat in the Luxembourg Gardens reading cookbooks until it was too dark to see, she realized that her heart was not in her studies but in the kitchen." Wizenberg started out as a food writer who wrote about home cooking, the meaning of food in the home, and its significance in relationships. This book made me love Molly Wizenberg. I was fascinated by her life, and I found her writing voice endearing and real and funny. Her manageable yet unusual recipes looked delectable. Wizenberg has more recently written a memoir about marriage, unexpected yearnings, and the messy process of finding herself again after losing her way; for my review of that book, see The Fixed Stars. Between these two books she wrote Delancey, about owning a restaurant with her husband. 05 Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver "Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it." I like that Kingsolver is careful to lay out the baby steps of her shifting views of food and of her process for growing or obtaining her family's sustenance. Her tone seems useful for readers who may not have gardens, much less farms, and who may looking to live vicariously through the details of her experience but also come away with simple steps they might take in their own lives. Kingsolver provides ideas for not only how to eat conscientiously (without being too rigid) but also for how to become more aware of issues surrounding local eating and how to effect change. I found her teenage daughter's sections somewhat irritating, but it must be tough to be a teenager drawn into Famous Author Mom's whirlwind. 06 Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl Here's the second Ruth Reichl title on this short list, but please recall from my introduction to the list that I really could have included another of her books (Save Me the Plums) without feeling sorry about it. So this second listing is actually evidence of my restraint. Reichl traces the roots of her interest in food, cooking, connecting, family, and the intersections of each of these elements. She credits those who shaped her culinary journey: the Queen of Mold (her mother, a notorious food poisoner); the chefs who introduced her to the indelible tastes and experiences that shaped her cooking and her culinary views; and those involved in the organic food movement and its 1970s beginnings. Reichl includes her own photographs and some of her favorite recipes, which together make the book feel like a special peek into both her personal and professional influences. Reichl is appealingly imperfect, down-to-earth, and a wonderful storyteller. Whenever she's writing about her life and about food, I'm always glad to be along for the ride.

In book two of Gillig's great gothic fantasy series, main characters go through satisfying arcs and development, a great love story persists, gargoyle Bartholomew yet again steals the show, and a struggle between political power and faith continues. In The Knight and the Moth, the first title in Gillig's Stonewater Kingdom series, a shadowy, eerie tone gave way to heartwarming, sometimes funny moments as an unlikely pack of allies set out on a journey of discovery, complete with battles, evolving loyalties, and an increasingly high-stakes quest. The romantic aspect was less essential than the fantasy elements, which I appreciated. In book two, key characters Rodrick Myndacious, Bartholomew, and Maude Bauer have evaded what felt like certain death to return to the kingdom, where Sybil has been forced to marry the faulted, weak king Benji. At the first of a series of tournaments meant to illustrate Benji's control, a mysterious knight becomes champion. He will turn out to be pivotal to Sybil's resistance--and to the path forward for the kingdom. Gillig continues the underlying, mystic and dark drownings, divinations, and cryptic powers of Sybil--and now of others in her orbit. Maude is presented with a well-deserved, respected role that would do her lineage proud. Bartholomew is as irresistible a character as ever, and he shows uncanny wisdom and self-sacrifice alongside his very funny, odd manner. “Do not let the light go out of your eyes." A tear fell down my cheek. "There's no light in stone, Bartholomew." "That is true." He peered out the window and nodded at the moon above. "And yet.” The Knave and Sybil cannot deny their draw to each other, and each is wonderfully relentless and formidable in their own right. The level of saucy attraction and true emotional connection between them is fantastic, feels legitimate, and is not overly belabored or drawn out. I loved it. The story explores the conflicts between power and faith, and the influence of the appearance or reality of each. Greed threatens to overwhelm belief; authority threatens pure hearts; but those who try to assert their command often fall to unassuming, guileless, true characters. Gillig allows full character development for the story's key figures, including a poignant and powerful arc for wonderful Bartholomew. I wasn't as captivated by the adventure as I was in book two, and I wasn't always certain of the journey's goals--nor did the characters always seem to be--but the gothic feel, haunting tone of the novel and the hearkening back to the depth of book one carried this novel for me. I listened to The Knave and the Moon as an audiobook courtesy of my public library and Libby. More Books to Check Out Rachel Gillig is also the author of The Knight and the Moth and the Shepherd King duology.

The first mystery in King's 19-book series builds an irresistibly layered professional partnership and personal, friends-like-family bond between Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. The story's detail, pacing, plot, and character development are all fantastic. I look forward to reading more titles in this series. It's 1915 and Sherlock Holmes is bored out of his mind and languishing in retirement...until he happens to meet 15-year-old Mary Russell on the Sussex Downs. She's curious, clever, doesn't mince words, and isn't concerned about social niceties. Holmes is drawn back into a vibrant, exciting life by Mary's promising intellect--and her initially vague interest in his extensive knowledge and methods of investigation. Soon he is teaching Mary all he knows, and she is reluctantly absorbing his information, then adding her own observations. Soon they're faced with the urgent mystery of a senator's kidnapped daughter, and they work together to solve the case. Mary shows herself to quickly be growing into Holmes's equal. It's satisfying to witness Holmes's initially begrudging acceptance of Mary's instincts and talent as his own abilities wane with his age, then to see the duo's heartfelt, eccentric, growing father-daughter bond. Soon a broader, more dangerous, thrilling mystery emerges: Someone is targeting Holmes, and now all those in his small orbit are in grave danger: Mary, Watson, Holmes's steadfast housekeeper Mrs. Hudson, and Holmes's brother Mycroft. But Holmes's longtime nemesis Moriarty is dead. So who is after Holmes? And will each of the people Holmes cares about survive this complicated revenge quest? I loved the steady but patient pacing, which allows for rich character development, particularly regarding Holmes and Mary (the Watson characterization is also fantastic, although limited). The story's details of the time and the setting are fantastic, the plot twists are intriguing, and the complicated, shifting dynamic between Mary and Sherlock is endearing. The layered, sinister long game aimed at besting Holmes is chilling and wonderfully imagined. I look forward to reading more mysteries in this series. I listened to this title as an audiobook courtesy of Libby and my local library. More Mysteries to Dive Into There are currently 19 full-length novels in this series, plus related works. Laurie R. King is also the author of many other mysteries. You can find more Bossy mystery reviews here.

In this dual-timeline historical fiction-fantasy-magical realism-witchy story, Martin explores the Suffolk witch trials of 1645 and builds a link between one of the accused and a modern-day woman coming into her own mysterious powers--who just might be able to save both women, within their own times. "All women have magic in them." In Madeline Martin's dual-timeline novel A Time of Witches, Lilith lives in present-day Savannah, Georgia, and Sybil lives in 1645 Suffolk, England, but the two are mystically connected across the centuries. Sybil is a strong-willed widow who, after refusing a powerful suitor, is accused of witchcraft and cruelly jailed. Since Lilith's mother's death, she has developed strange powers and visions, and when her future is foretold by an odd, believable seer, Lilith knows she must find a way back in time to help Sybil, or else Lilith herself will die. Lilith travels to England to try to somehow reach Sybil, save her own life--and just maybe fall in love. (Hmmm. Let's stay on task, Lilith!) At times the male characters in A Time of Witches are so evil, they feel like caricatures of bad men. Yet we know from history that what Martin builds in her novel is a version of real-life witch hunts, featuring infuriating reflections of men's past, actual, horrific abuses of control used to silence outspoken or threateningly powerful women. There is (and was) no way for the accused women to refute charges against them, so in an enraging cycle of absurd tests that cannot be passed, the women who have spurned men, hold wealth others want, or have offended someone in their household or elsewhere are eliminated from society and killed. The past timeline intrigued me most; Lilith has promising powers about which she is ignorant, but for me she was primarily an avenue through which I could access more of Sybil and her story. I read that this story was inspired by a recurring dream Martin experienced over multiple years. Suffolk was the site of actual witch trials that occurred in 1645, and Martin researched those events for the novel. I received a prepublication audio version of this title (narrated by the wonderful Saskia Maarleveld) courtesy of Libro.fm and Hanover Square Press. More Books to Check Out Madeline Martin is also the author of The Secret Book Society, The Librarian Spy, The Last Bookshop in London, The Keeper of Hidden Books, and The Booklover's Library. For more Bossy witchy reads, please check out the lists and titles at this link.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to the second in Rachel Gillig's Stonewater Kingdom series, The Knave and the Moon; I'm reading Chloe Benjamin's captivating novel Under Story; and I'm listening to Madeline Martin's newest novel, A Time of Witches. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 The Knave and the Moon (Stonewater Kingdom #2) by Rachel Gillig In The Knight and the Moth, the first title in Gillig's Stonewater Kingdom series, a shadowy, eerie tone 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. In book two, key characters Rodrick Myndacious, Bartholomew, and Maude Bauer have evaded what felt like certain death to return to the kingdom, where Sybil has been forced to marry the faulted, weak king Benji. At the first of a series of tournaments meant to illustrate Benji's control, a mysterious knight becomes champion. He will turn out to be pivotal to Sybil's resistance--and to the path forward for the kingdom. I'm listening to The Knave and the Moon as an audiobook courtesy of my public library and Libby. Rachel Gillig is also the author of The Knight and the Moth and the Shepherd King duology. 02 Under Story by Chloe Benjamin In Chloe Benjamin's haunting, beautiful novel Under Story, Laurel is a biologist who studies fungi and who's running from her past. She's gotten as far away as possible from her home, and now she's working long hours outside of her profession, toiling in a kitchen at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. But as she settles into a new community, she is fascinated by an inexplicable glowing apparition in the Antarctic snow, which McMurdo residents call the Arc. Is the Arc simply a light, visible energy, or, as Laurel is beginning to imagine, possibly a portal to another time? When Laurel's lifelong love and ex-husband arrives unexpectedly with other physicists to explore the Arc, Laurel wonders if he and she might find their way to each other again--at least in order to understand the mystery of the Antarctic phenomenon. I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Putnam. Chloe Benjamin is also the author of The Immortalists and The Anatomy of Dreams. 03 A Time of Witches by Madeline Martin In Madeline Martin's dual-timeline novel, Lilith lives in present-day Savannah, Georgia, and Sybil lives in 1645 Suffolk, but the two are mystically connected across the centuries. Sybil is a strong-willed widow who, after refusing a powerful suitor, is accused of witchcraft and cruelly jailed. Since Lilith's mother's death, she has developed strange powers and visions, and when her future is foretold by an odd, believable seer, Lilith knows she must find a way back in time to help Sybil, or else Lilith herself will die. Lilith travels to England to reach Sybil, save her own life--and just maybe fall in love. Martin builds an infuriating version of real-life witch hunts, featuring men's past, horrific abuses of control in order to silence powerful women. I received a prepublication audio version of this title (narrated by the wonderful Saskia Maarleveld) courtesy of Libro.fm and Hanover Square Press. Madeline Martin is also the author of The Secret Book Society, The Librarian Spy, The Last Bookshop in London, The Keeper of Hidden Books, and The Booklover's Library.

After the World Falls Apart I have a fascination with postapocalyptic and dystopian books, and I think it's for the same reason I'm captivated by wartime stories: the books are about characters being pushed to their limits by an incredibly challenging situation, and in coping with that situation, they discover and demonstrate their true selves and abilities. I hope you'll also check out the books on my first Greedy Reading List of Six Fantastic Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels. Which dystopian or postapocalyptic books have fascinated you? 01 Goddess in the Machine by Lora Beth Johnson Robots, time travel, teen angst, and this gorgeous cover. Yes to all of this. I didn't anticipate the twists Johnson provides, and I was delighted by each of them. Goddess in the Machine is more than just a gorgeous cover. Lora Beth Johnson had me hooked immediately by the premise and Andra's voice. Teenage Andra finally wakes up after being cryogenically preserved for a century-long journey to a new planet. She's a little creaky and sore, sure, but she's ready to be reunited with the team, which includes her mother and the rest of her family, plus many others involved in the complex project. They'll begin the work of bravely populating and building a new life on this planet. Except...Andra soon realizes she wasn't sleeping for 100 years. She was asleep for 1,000. The people, terrain, and language are not what she studied for or expected, everyone she once knew has already lived and died--oh, and the general population, whoever they are, thinks she's a goddess, and they've been waiting excitedly for her to wake up and save them. I didn't anticipate the twist/double twist here, and I loved being surprised again and again. For my full review, please see Goddess in the Machine. 02 Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir Gideon’s speech is modern and biting, there are darkly funny moments, and the friendships and loyalty resonate in a lovely way. The tone of Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth was unlike any fantasy novel I’ve read, and the friendships and loyalty that develop seem impossible, yet resonate in a lovely way. It’s really a fascinating book. I read this during Pandemic Times, which slowed me down and also, I believe, made it tougher than it should’ve been for me to differentiate between some of the secondary characters. (They’re also each called by multiple titles and names, which became slightly jumbled in my mind at times.) The settings are so stark and unique and clearly built that I think the general sense of this book is going to haunt me for a long time. And the ending—! This is the first in Muir's Locked Tomb series. For my full review, check out Gideon the Ninth, and you can also find my review of the second in this series, Harrow the Ninth. I haven't yet read the third book in this series, Nona the Ninth, or the fourth, Alecto the Ninth. 03 Machinehood by S.B. Divya Space! Robots! Artificial intelligence! Divya has crafted strong female main protagonists who navigate the sometimes dark, always complicated pressures of life in 2095--as they try to save the world. In her debut novel, Divya sets the scene in the world of 2095. Humanity around the world is reliant on homemade and commercially manufactured pills--for health, for work focus, for managing bots, for healing, for sleep, and for transitioning between all of the above. I wished for more page time spent on everyday tasks and activities (cooking, shifting household modules, travel, and communicating), which were all carried out in Jetsons-level, fascinating, futuristic ways. But Divya is too busy crafting strong female main protagonists (complete with working mother guilt, which exists in the future too). The management of many large-scale issues and their side effects are shown in shades of gray rather than black-and-white, including the meaning and value of personhood; the definitions of health, autonomy, and freedom; sometimes-necessary compromises; and the promise for the future of the world. For my full review, check out Machinehood. 04 Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg Long I was hooked by Meg Long's debut young adult science fiction novel about tough young Sena, her skittish fighting wolf Iska, and their desperate journey across the ice. ​In the young adult science fiction novel Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves, young Sena has lost both of her mothers to the brutal sled races on her frozen planet. Since then she's had to be scrappy, creative, and above all, tough. When she angers a local warlord and becomes eager to escape her world, she's relieved to secure promises of transport out--but those who would help her have one condition: she must help them take part in the planet's most infamous sled race. In Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves, Long offers an intriguing story of brutal conditions, determined survival, hard-earned loyalty, grudging friendship, and a stubborn overcoming of various vivid dangers. I was hooked by Long's world-building, her evocative, immersive descriptions of the cold climate, and by tough, grumpy Sena, who has a big heart and a soft spot for Iska, her personality counterpart in wolf form. To see my full review, check out Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves. This book's sequel is Swift the Storm, Fierce the Flame. 05 How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu Nagamatsu's science fiction centers around a resurgence of an ancient Arctic plague. These interconnected stories are odd, fascinating, and sometimes panic-inducing, yet they offer glimmers of hope. I was intrigued by all of it. ​It's 2030, and an archaeologist in the Arctic Circle discovers a body perfectly preserved in the permafrost. His personal situation is complicated by his grief for his recently deceased daughter, and he aims to continue the research work she began. The interconnected stories here are made up of strange, affecting situations. In one circumstance, referred to in the book's title, there is a captivating, dark, in-between world of floating, nebulous memories that highlights humans’ struggles to connect to each other. How High We Go in the Dark combines linked elements that wind through the book. Characters appear in the backgrounds of others’ stories; a necklace disappears from one story in the Arctic and reappears in a casual mention around the neck of another character across the world in another time; and we see varied points of view regarding aspects of the same stories. For my full review, please see How High We Go in the Dark. 06 The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James Romy's soaring hopes, her vulnerability and then her growing doubts, her self-reliance and quick thinking, and the shifts and twists of the book all kept me hooked for this quick read. I loved this. ​Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met, never even spoken to--someone who is light years away? This young adult science fiction story has an irresistible premise: teenaged Romy is the sole survivor on her spaceship, which is en route to establishing an outpost on a new planet. She's on her own out there in space, and as lonely as any human could imagine being. There's no hope of seeing another human again anytime soon. Her sole communication outlet is with her NASA contact, Molly, who sends her audio messages (and occasionally forwards along episodes of Romy's favorite TV show). But then Romy gets word that another ship has launched from earth, with a young man called J as the pilot. Romy is on her own in space, haunted by the events that led to her solo venture. Her self-reliance, romanticized ideas, quick thinking, and strength of character, along with the shifts and twists of the book, all kept me hooked. For my full review, please see The Loneliest Girl in the Universe.

I love a sci-fi story about a ragtag space gang trying to salvage a desperate situation. The first in Thorne's series delivers charming, heartwarming adventure and a cast of characters I can't wait to spend more time with in book two. In Rebecca Thorne's cozy sci-fi adventure Moss'd in Space, it's sometime after the year 90,000, and Torian's years of saving have finally allowed her to buy a spaceship. Now she will finally be able to take her sister to a distant planet where the air quality will allow her to live longer than her current grim estimate. Torian just has to convince her sister to come along...and get her centuries-abandoned, moss-covered ship in working order. But the moss all over the spaceship is sentient, bossy, and suffering emotionally from having been left alone for so many years. It's also been busy advancing its significant capabilities. When Moss ends up face to face with the loved one who left it centuries earlier--who is key to understanding the ship and how to facilitate Torian's mission--it's not inclined to forgive and forget. Torian's unexpected alliance with genius fungi leads her into (literally) uncharted territories, and the ties that bind her ragtag group of explorers are stronger than anyone would have dreamed. This is charming, creative, and wonderfully strange. I loved how much warmth Thorne injected into this story; bighearted sci-fi is my absolute favorite type. The worldbuilding and Thorne's various creatures and their histories were intriguing. I loved the story's coziness and tone, which assured me that everything was going to work out. Moss's dry delivery was somewhat reminiscent of Murderbot. And the cliffhanger was delightful. I can't wait to read book two next spring. I listened to Moss'd in Space as an audiobook courtesy of my public library and Libby. Rebecca Thorne is the author of many other books, including Can't Spell Treason Without Tea. The next title in this series, Moss Effect, is scheduled for publication next spring. More Books to Check Out For more books about ragtag crews on quests, please check out the titles at this link.

I was most interested in the fascinating premise and the exploration of guilt and responsibility after a terrible accident. I didn't enjoy the peeks into the future, which for me took the drama out of the fraught events that drive the story. And I was disappointed to have easily guessed the facts at the heart of the minor mystery. But I love Chris Bohjalian and many of his other books, so I'll happily read his next novel. Mira Winston is 18 years old in 1978, hitting golf balls at the country club on a summer day when she drives a ball into a practice net--but the net breaks, and a nearby caddy is struck in the temple, a deadly blow. After the accident, the golf prodigy turns to all the wrong places while trying to cope with her grief, and her affluent community passes judgment on her messy attempts to find solace. The premise of this novel is fascinating, and I thought the strongest part of the story was the early portion surrounding the accident and immediate fallout. The foreshadowing of Mira's future success in both career and love took the high-stakes feeling away from the events and deliberations that occur in her youth. And I guessed the facts surrounding the minor mystery surrounding those events early on, which was disappointing. I thought Mira might be headed toward a period of sexual empowerment and her owning of it (after turning to the numbing effects of drugs and alcohol), but she offered up a more valuable personal evolution; she began to understand the power mismatch and the pedophilia at the heart of her first young relationship. These realizations were some of the most powerful in the book for me. When she meets her future love--Bohjalian reveals this eventuality early on, so I'm not spoiling a surprise--I wasn't at all convinced that he would be taken with Mira. She is, she readily admits, a mess emotionally, often drunk and on drugs to blot out reality, and, ultimately, she is not sure she wants to live. He is older and has been through war, doesn't drink or use drugs, and doesn't seem to have a savior complex. It was a relationship I wanted to buy into more easily. I was most interested in the story's exploration of mortality, terrible chance accidents, culpability even without responsibility or liability, and living a life after having dealt a blow to a family and a lost one's loved ones that can never be resolved. I read a prepublication edition of this novel courtesy of NetGalley and Doubleday Books. More Books to Try Chris Bohjalian is also the author of books such as The Jackal's Mistress, Hour of the Witch, Skeletons at the Feast, and others.

Walls uses a journal structure to draw the reader into a singular story I can't stop thinking about. In Field Notes from an Extinction, we witness the innermost thoughts of a grumbly hermit ornithologist who is thrust into a parenting role, then must face a pirate queen out for revenge on British colonial rulers amid the Irish Potato Famine. Eoghan Wells's Field Notes from an Extinction is a novel told in journal form from the perspective of a stodgy, single-minded 19th-century ornithologist. Ignatius Green is sent by the Royal Society to the remote Irish island of Tor Mor to study some of the last Great Auks left in the world. Meanwhile the potato famine ravages the mainland Irish population and all order seems lost. A trickle-down effect begins to break down the strict systems Ig has imposed upon his wild surroundings. When the ruffian local suppliers row over not only his (rifled-through, partially stolen) supplies but also a small, feral child (he eventually learns that her name is Bridget), all hope seems to be lost of continuing his seemingly doomed mission of observation, documentation, and providing an orderly report of the endangered birds. Add to the complicated situation that Bridget's mother is said by the untrustworthy rowboat operators to be the most dangerous, fabled, infamous pirate in the land, Grace O'Malley. Grace is rumored to be carrying out renegade justice on the British officers kicking Irish tenant families out of their homes during the Irish Potato Famine, leaving the people to starve. Her formidable, fearsome presence looms from afar, and Ig dreads the possibility that she might come to fetch the child she has mystifyingly sent his way. I was drawn into Ig's insular world and his heartbreaking dedication and singleminded focus on the tragic Auks. He holds prejudices against the Irish, and he is unaware of his closemindedness and assumptions. The journal structure of the novel allows us to witness all of his grumbly nitpicking, his large-scale fears and concerns, his existence on a knife-edge, dependent on his primitive, remote systems and self-discipline--and his altered perspective after the upsetting, upheaving, destructive, horrifying, wondrous arrival of the child. Soon everything shifts, and we see the sea change within Ig, with the Auks themselves, with young Bridget, and in the world surrounding their spare, strange, isolated island. I was fully intrigued by the story and by Ig's vivid point of view, the relentless and increasingly outrageous interruptions to his status quo, and the building power of change, leading to the eventual complete destruction of his prior life. I was so delighted by the tone, the structure, and the unexpected evolution within Field Notes from an Extinction. I can't stop thinking about this book. I received this title as part of my Books Are Magic monthly book subscription. More Books for You to Explore Eoghan Walls is a Northern Irish poet who is also the author of The Gospel of Orla. You might also like these books set in Ireland, books about found family, or books about island life.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Rebecca Thorne's cozy sci-fi adventure Moss'd in Space; I'm listening to Laurie R. King's dry, lovely mystery featuring a retired Sherlock Holmes and a young Mary Russell, The Beekeeper's Apprentice; and I'm reading Sara Nović's memoir which explores her experiences in the deaf community, Mother Tongue. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Moss'd in Space by Rebecca Thorne In Rebecca Thorne's cozy sci-fi adventure, it's sometime after the year 90,000, and Torian's years of saving have finally allowed her to buy a spaceship. Now she can finally take her sister to a distant planet where the air quality will allow her to live longer than her current prognosis. She just has to convince her to come with her...and get her centuries-abandoned, moss-covered ship in working order. But the moss is sentient, bossy, and suffering emotionally from having been left alone for so many years. This is charming, creative, and wonderfully strange so far. I'm listening to Moss'd in Space as an audiobook courtesy of my public library and Libby. Rebecca Thorne is the author of many other books, including Can't Spell Treason Without Tea. For more books about ragtag crews on quests, please check out the titles at this link. 02 The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Mary Russell Mystery #1) by Laurie R. King It's 1915 and Sherlock Holmes is bored out of his mind in retirement...until he happens to meet 15-year-old Mary Russell on the Sussex Downs. She's curious, clever, doesn't mince words, and isn't concerned about social niceties. He's drawn back into life by Mary's promising intellect--and vague interest in his extensive knowledge and methods of investigation. Soon he is teaching her all he knows, and she is reluctantly absorbing his information and adding her own observations. Soon they're working together to solve the mystery of a senator's kidnapped daughter, and Mary is quickly beginning to grow to be Holmes's equal. I'm listening to this title as an audiobook courtesy of Libby and my local library. Laurie R. King is also the author of many other mysteries. 03 Mother Tongue: A Memoir by Sara Novic When Sara Nović was young, she loved hearing stories and listening music. But after she failed her school's mandatory hearing test, she feared being labeled deaf, treated differently, and ostracized. She told no one of the test results and became doggedly determined to remain in the mainstream, hearing world. After she could no longer pretend that she could hear, she learned American Sign Language, met other deaf people, learned about the vibrant deaf community, and reimagined her own labels and expectations. Now the mother of a biological child who is hearing and an adopted child who is deaf, she mothers them within her own context and within the deaf community. Sara Novic is also the author of the wonderful novel True Biz and Girl at War, which I haven't yet read.

Do you enjoy a character-driven Western? I appreciate an unflinching reflection of our nation's complex history--which includes the atrocities visited upon the indigenous peoples of our continent because white people explored and settled in the West. I'm also fascinated by the optimistic explorer spirit--and I love reading about strong female characters in a time when the world around them didn't typically support women's strength and determination. One of these books is narrative nonfiction, but I Bossily included it in this list. If you're interested in books like those listed here, you might also like the titles on my Greedy Reading List Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West. And for great historical fiction of all types, look at these historical fiction greedy reading lists. Happy reading, bookworms! 01 Inland by Téa Obreht Much of Téa Obreht's Inland is centered around Nora, an impulsive, hot-tempered, strong woman fighting for a hardscrabble life for her family in a remote town during a devastating drought. The other plotline concerns Lurie, a man who has adventures and challenges with his surprising, loyal, exotic companion. The two disparate stories intersect in an unlikely way in 1890s Arizona Territory, and fantastical elements throughout make even the most jaded characters believe in the odd and implausible in this remarkable book. I read this story as an e-book and was therefore robbed of gazing at this gorgeous cover. I adore it. Random House Publishing Group provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. For my full review of Inland, please click here. 02 Whiskey When We're Dry by John Larison In 1885, Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on the homestead. Seventeen-year-old girls aren't safe on their own, so Jess cuts her hair, binds her chest, and saddles up for a trip across the mountains in search of her lawless brother Noah. Jess is such a good shot, she ends up working for the mean-as-a-snake governor of the territory--and finds that the governor's armed forces are hunting for Noah and intend to capture him, dead or alive. “What started the war, Pa?" His eyes settled on me. "Stories, Jessilyn. We tell ourselves the wrong stories.” I love love love a character-driven western. Jess's voice was fantastic. She grapples with the stories she's been told as compared to the reality she experiences as she makes her way. Whiskey When We're Dry is a rough, heart-wrenching, wonderful story from John Larison. 03 A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella L. Bird Isabella Bird's nonfiction account of her 1873 travels through the rugged, wondrous American West is full of her irresistible determination to discover; offers fascinating details of flora, fauna, and the people she encountered; and showcases her sparkling personality. British Isabella Bird explored the wild, rugged western United States in the late 1800s, and she journeyed the challenging terrain in shocking solo fashion. Through the vividly recounted adventures in this lively narrative nonfiction, Bird shares her many discoveries, difficulties, and wonders. The book is built from letters Bird wrote to her sister (with some key notes added after the fact), which paint an unflinching account of her own occasionally dangerous missteps, her soaring hopes and deep connection to the stark mountains, and a sometimes-scathing social commentary related to Indians, class, ecological irresponsibility, and the dramatic inspiration she finds in nature. Bird was an understated trailblazer with irresistible determination and feistiness. Her wonder-filled fascination with the flora, fauna, and characters she encounters in the west combined with her mix of no-nonsense practicality and ambitious traveling goals and incredible fortitude make for a captivating read. For my full review of this book, please see A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. 04 Doc by Mary Doria Russell Surprise! Doc is nonfiction, but it reads like historical fiction (as opposed to a heavier nonfiction title like Tom Clavin's Tombstone, which also includes lots of Doc Holliday information), so I'm Bossily including it. I love Mary Doria Russell’s character-driven books, and this Western, set in Dodge City, Kansas, in the late nineteenth century, is a slow build rather than a dramatic, gun-slinging action story. Doc doesn’t focus on the Tombstone shootout, but instead on Doc Holliday’s life, his brotherlike friendship with the Earps, and his longtime relationship with a Hungarian noblewoman-turned-prostitute, Kate. Mary Doria Russell also interestingly explores Holliday's career as a dentist (at a time when the dental profession was tainted by traveling butchers and thieves), and his gallant, grumpy, well-read, mischievous, and generous-to-a-fault personality. The author also wrote The Sparrow, which I adored and gave five stars. She's such a gorgeous writer, I'd read anything she tried her hand at writing. 05 Into the Savage Country by Shannon Burke Into the Savage Country is a serenely told story of a band of fur traders--some wild, some considered gentlemen, some one of these but striving to be the other--striking out into the West in the first half of the 1800s. The writing style involves a lot of telling, which seemingly intentionally slows the pacing--and which I usually don't love, but here it gives a fittingly old-fashioned quality to the writing that feels as though it suits the time, the main protagonist, and the tale itself. The group encounters friendly and hostile Native Americans; copes with antagonized and antagonistic British trappers; is threatened with imprisonment; experiences cruel and potentially fatal betrayal by one of their own; faces the wild and its many dangers; suffers grave wounds; and saves each other's skin countless times--including after foolish situations (which seem as though they would have been easily avoided) such as literally waking a sleeping bear and baiting an injured bull. Yet because of the pacing, I didn't necessarily feel on the edge of my seat while I read about all of it. There is a deeper, quiet, surprisingly affecting story beneath the Western adventure, which is about trust, loyalty, sometimes begrudging but deeply felt affection, discovery of self-worth, celebrating differences, and love. And it's the pacing and tone of the story that allows for all of those elements to feel real. 06 News of the World by Paulette Jiles Captain Kidd has fought in three wars, and after the Civil War's end, he serves as a traveling news reader, providing eager listeners along his route with news from the world. Kidd somewhat reluctantly ends up agreeing to transport a young, recently rescued Kiowa captive 400 miles to her extended family. They'll have to pass through lawless lands to get to San Antonio, and Johanna isn't a willing participant in this venture, having become more culturally Kiowa over the years than white and unfamiliar with her remaining blood relatives. Not all of the members of my book club felt as strongly about this one as I did, but I adored every bit of this--Captain Kidd's reluctant but gentlemanly involvement and his voice, the character of Johanna, the Texas setting, the fits and starts of adventure, the noble heart of the story, the humor, and the heartbreak. I loved loved loved it. Jiles also wrote Simon the Fiddler and the glorious The Color of Lightning. Click here for my full review of The News of the World.

In this perfect summer read, Harrison explores 1950s life for three women facing complicated personal challenges. Tennis brings them together, and they use their inner strength and smarts to fight through troubles as they rely on each other. I recently gave a talk about newish books I recommend for spring and summer reading (stay tuned for the full post), and I also mentioned that I was in the middle of reading this one. Luckily, The Island Club stood up to its entertaining, immersive start and turned out to be a great summer read. Nicola Harrison's The Island Club is set in the 1950s on Balboa Island off the coast of California. Tennis ultimately brings together three women, formerly strangers to each other. Their lives intersect in their small community, and they reluctantly become vulnerable with each other, sharing secrets, challenges, and devastating problems they wouldn't tell anyone else. A secret past is revealed, marital troubles are laid bare, and financial devastation becomes clear. The women feel deeply and lean on each other. They're each reeling, but ultimately they realize their resilience; they're clever, determined, and creative with problem-solving. Harrison raises some weighty issues, and there are some dark periods within the story, but the tone of The Island Club is that of a summer book. The Island Club delivers full-on 1950s immersion while exploring LGBTQ issues, privilege, sacrifice, second chances, and redemption. As I was reading, I had faith that all would work out, but that the resolutions would be just tricky enough to make it feel satisfying. The author spoke here last week, and she talked about her inspirations, her writing process, and her life. I loved being there. More Books You Might Love Nicola Harrison is also the author of Montauk, The Show Girl, and Hotel Laguna. For more Bossy reviews of novels set in the 1950s, please check out this link.

Cash crafts a delightfully campy, oddball novel around a family of characters who for various reasons abandon social acceptability as they aim to find fulfillment, solve a mystery, discover compatibility, seek purpose, and coexist together. This is a darkly humorous, sometimes quirky tale that's edgy and provocative. In Madeline Cash's darkly funny, oddball novel, the reader can tell what Catherine and Bud Flynn cannot: their open marriage is either directly or indirectly further destroying their dysfunctional family. Abigail is a high schooler dating a man in his twenties, a former military man nicknamed War Crimes Wes; Louise's online boyfriend seems to almost certainly be recruiting her to be a terrorist; and brilliant Harper is sent to a behavioral reform camp because she is relentless in her (accurate) accusations about a corrupt conspiracy involving all of the powerful men in their town. Cash actively makes over-the-top choices that are likely to cause discomfort--Louise's online boyfriend is an outrageously caricatured Muslim who is online clumsily recruiting potential terrorists; Abigail is a minor having a relationship with an adult; human trafficking victims get a cheery, Pollyannaish new start; and a neighbor child is differently abled but referred to in somewhat and also outright offensive terms. Take those elements along with the open marriage that pushes the family off balance in the first place, and nothing here is considered taboo. Cash commits her protagonists to unsympathetic behavior and uses their out-of-bounds acts and words to illustrate her characters' multifaceted abandonment of societal norms and acceptability. In some ways, the messy, chaotic Flynn family reminded me of the sometimes feral Herdman family in The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever. The stakes of the story's situations are quite high, but the tone of Lost Lambs assures the reader that no untimely deaths or horrors will occur (outside of the lunacy and tragedies Cash has already put in place). This was surprisingly heartwarming and wonderfully sardonic. Other Books to Explore Madeline Cash is also the author of the short story collection Earth Angel. You might also like these edgy books, darkly funny books, oddball, and bonkers books, as well as books about families.

At times this debut novel about an octogenarian and mistaken identity was too cloyingly sweet for me, but Fred's stumbling through life after grief and loss is poignant, and the story of mistakes and redemption is undoubtedly heartwarming. Frederick Fife is a widowed octogenarian living in Australia whose spark for life has dwindled significantly since the death of his beloved wife. He's a day away from being kicked out of his apartment (his wife's long cancer treatment bankrupted him). He has no idea of where to go or what to do, and he's worrying over it all when he takes a forlorn walk along the river. The coincidental sudden death of Bernard, a man who's Fred's doppelgänger, right in front of him, along with a series of outlandish events, together lead to Fred's being accidentally folded into the life of a nearby retirement community. All of his protests and his escape attempts are ignored as evidence of dementia, although unlike Bernard's, Fred's mind is as sharp as ever. Before he knows it, Fred is fully entrenched in living the lie that he is actually another man. Fred is faced with the awkward realities of Bernard's intimate clothing (it all fits, even the shoes!), Bernard's previously burned bridges due to his grumpy demeanor, Bernard's liaisons with a racy, aggressive fellow resident, Bernard's supposedly worsening dementia, Bernard's documented incontinence, and Bernard's daily medications. Fred enjoys the shelter, three meals a day, and especially the company and new friendships, and he knows that Bernard was without any family and destitute, so he doesn't feel he's abusing the deceased man's money. But a revelation about Bernard's past very much affects Fred's present, and Fred's situation becomes far more complicated, emotionally rich, and full of guilt when he meets Bernard's grown and newly pregnant (and single, and financially struggling) daughter, who was estranged from her father for decades due to his disruptive gambling addiction (which is said to explain why she doesn't recognize that Fred is not who he says he is)--an unfortunate life-ruiner of a habit that luckily happened to pay off in the form of an enormous, previously secret, windfall that should rightfully be hers. This is very sweet--at times it felt too cloyingly sweet for me. The story is heavily reliant upon the suspension of disbelief so that all of the coincidences work. I was nervous while reading about Fred's growing deceit, but as he blunders his way through various sticky situations, he undoubtedly improves the lives of all he encounters, and the heartwarming circumstances made me sure we were headed for the somewhat clean resolution Johnston ultimately delivers. I listened to this title as an audiobook courtesy of Libby and my local library for my book club. More Books to Explore The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is Anna Johnston's debut novel. You might also like these Bossy books that are heartwarming.

The premise of this novel hooked me, and the relatively slow pacing throughout felt suited to an insular island life that exists outside of time. It's ultimately romantic to the nth degree, with damning climate-change effects that felt somewhat abrupt. The stormy night Clay Lockhart's wife and children die, he flies into a raging grief, and seemingly as a result of the power of his pain, his home and the land beneath it break from Scotland and float into the sea. When Ellie Mills is a young girl in Nova Scotia, she stumbles onto Clay and his island and upon stepping foot upon its land, enters into a mysterious time warp. But upon her return home her account is largely dismissed as a delusion. She is almost certain that her experience was real, and the pull of the island haunts her into adulthood, so that she constantly feels as though something is missing from her life. Now Clay's island has been spied by a cruise ship of passengers, and everyone is now prepared to believe Ellie's original tale, but she is torn. Can she revisit the strange island from her youth, and does she even want to unravel the secrets of that distant memory and place? Will the mysterious man on the island answer her questions or allow her to enter it, if she can even access that strange place again? And with the oddities of time on the island, would she be giving up her predictable yet comfortable future, years of her life, for merely a visit to that strange land? I appreciated that the floating island and its time warp existed alongside realistic factors here without Earnshaw attempting to explain the circumstances. Why is the island actively drifting around the world? Who knows? Why does it exist within a time vacuum so that those living on it don't age? No clue. It's an invitation to suspend disbelief and roll with it, and I was happy to do so. I don't know why this house and this land broke away from the mainland all those years ago. I don't know why Clay was swept out to sea, and I don't know why I was drawn here as a young girl, why this island has called to me my whole life. I don't know why time moves strangely against its shores. Ellie's lifelong yearning for the island leads her to it again, but upon her arrival she immediately seeks to leave. When she is unable to do so, she doubts whether she should have come at all. This self-doubt and wondering takes up the bulk of the page time in the book, and the pacing of all of this is slow (this does suit the island life, which is unchanging apart from weather-related issues). I didn't mind this extensive navel-gazing for a long while, because Earnshaw's writing is lovely, but ultimately I began to grow somewhat impatient. I was puzzled by a few elements. Clay's intense grief, presumably unprecedented in the world or at least in his part of the world, which was due to the loss of his wife and unborn twins, was powerful to do the impossible: create the island, set it in motion, and form the time warp. Ellie supposes: "Maybe Clay's broken heart severed time, cracked it like an egg. Maybe a man's heart is capable of powerful things." Yet when it comes to Clay and Ellie, his fondness for his wife is clarified as having been simply companionship, not at all a deep love like Ellie and Clay have. Huh. At times I wondered why the main protagonists didn't fear the obvious things that would doom them: loss of the bees (which allowed their garden to grow) to a storm, or sheep to a mishap or illness, or chickens to either of the above. Clay and Ellie's respective "should I, shouldn't I?" internal warring about potential intimacy felt like a luxury--and, ultimately, crises do occur for the couple, who must adjust and face difficult circumstances. The eventual romance and passion were lovely and all-encompassing for the characters. I felt repeatedly surprised that Ellie didn't miss more creature comforts; she mentions only a few aspects of modern life that she wishes for. I also expected at least a few brief grumpy periods in which the two characters bristle at having only each other for company, conversation, entertainment, and stimulation. Because Clay and Ellie and their creatures don't age, they witness a fast-forwarding of climate change. It's a powerful element in the book in that it affects their trajectory around the globe and their landing options and conditions, yet it takes up relatively little page time. Ellie makes some seemingly flippant comments about the hypothetical rejection of everyday life, and it's unclear what alternative she imagines for others; as far as we know, only two people in the world have been able to escape to a timeless island: "I would tell them to burn it all down. So they can build something new. I wasn't the only one dying back there on the mainland. We all were; our lives poisoned by the very things we thought would save us." Earnshaw largely seems to leave this directive and the environment's bleak developments for the reader to contextualize. I was intrigued by the early story, willing to put aside any temporary impatience about the pacing of the middle, then felt that the ending was somewhat abrupt--yet its resolutions were somewhat satisfying. I read a prepublication edition of this novel courtesy of NetGalley and Atria Books. More Books to Explore Shea Ernshaw is also the author of The Wicked Deep, A History of Wild Places, Winterwood, and other titles. Check out these links for Bossy books that play with time, books about island life, and books with Scottish settings.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Madeline Cash's heartwarming and so far morbidly funny debut novel Lost Lambs; I'm listening to Anna Johnston's extremely sweet story of an octogenarian benefiting from a case of mistaken identity, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife; and I'm reading Eoghan Walls's novel told in journal format and set in 19th century Ireland, Field Notees from an Extinction. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash In Madeline Cash's darkly funny, oddball novel, the reader can tell what Catherine and Bud Flynn cannot: their open marriage is either directly or indirectly further destroying their dysfunctional family. Abigail is a high schooler dating a man in his twenties, a former military man nicknamed War Crimes Wes; Louise's online boyfriend seems to almost certainly be recruiting her to be a terrorist; and brilliant Harper is sent to a behavioral reform camp because she is relentless in her (accurate) accusations about a corrupt conspiracy involving all of the powerful men in their town. In some ways, the messy, chaotic Flynn family so far reminds me of the sometimes feral Herdman family in The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever. This is surprisingly heartwarming and wonderfully sardonic. Madeline Cash is also the author of the short story collection Earth Angel. 02 The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston Frederick Fife is a widowed octogenarian whose spark for life has dwindled significantly since the death of his beloved wife. He's a day from being kicked out of his apartment (his wife's cancer treatment bankrupted him) and without any idea of where to go or what to do when he takes a forlorn walk along the river. The sudden death of a man who's Fred's doppelganger and a series of outlandish events lead to Fred's being accidentally folded into the life of a nearby retirement community, all of his protests ignored as the rantings of a man with dementia, although his mind is as sharp as ever. Before he knows it, he's entrenched in living the lie that he is actually another man, and he's at a loss as to what to do. This is very sweet so far, and it's heavily reliant upon the suspension of disbelief so that all of the coincidences work. I'm listening to this title as an audiobook courtesy of Libby and my local library for my book club. The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is Anna Johnston's debut novel. 03 Field Notes from an Extinction by Eoghan Walls Eoghan Wells's Field Notes from an Extinction is a novel told in journal form from the perspective of a stodgy, single-minded 19th-century ornithologist. Ignatius Green is sent by the Royal Society to the remote Irish island of Tor Mor to study some of the last Great Auks left in the world. Meanwhile the potato famine ravages the mainland Irish population and all order seems lost. A trickle-down effect begins to break down the strict systems Ig has imposed upon his wild surroundings. When the ruffian local suppliers row over not only his (rifled-through, partially stolen) supplies but also a small, feral child, all hope seems to be lost of continuing his seemingly doomed mission of observation, documentation, and providing an orderly report of the endangered birds. Eoghan Walls is a Northern Irish poet who is also the author of The Gospel of Orla.