Narnia Bloggin': the new Chronicles of Narnia covers I've seen in person

Previously: more cover art for The Chronicles of Narnia books

I've been to my local Barnes & Noble a couple of times this year (I try to stay away because it's such a temptation), and naturally I looked at the new individual covers of The Chronicles of Narnia when I was there. I was able to look at The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW), Prince Caspian (PC), The Horse and His Boy (HHB), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (VotDT), and The Magician's Nephew (MN). Sadly my B&N didn't have The Silver Chair (SC) or The Last Battle (LB), so I was unable to see those in person. 

The new book covers (art by Owen Richardson) look basically just like what you see online. I'm glad I took pictures of the back covers, as the seller websites I looked at don't seem to post them at all. Obviously you can see the full wraparound cover images here. 

LWW back cover

 

PC back cover

 

VotDT back cover

 

HHB back cover

 

 

MN back cover

Remember the planetary symbols that Richardson sneaked into the cover illustrations? The one for LWW is covered up due to how the back of the book is formatted. PC, VotDT, and MN's planetary symbols are on the front covers, so you can still see them if you know what to look for. HHB's is on the back cover, but it escapes being covered up by the other back cover elements. I spent way too long looking for the planetary symbol in LB's cover art before looking at NarniaWeb's answer key (at the link above) and realizing that Richardson just put the literal planet Saturn. 🙄 You can read what I think about the whole Planet Narnia thing here. 

Earlier this month I went back to B&N to look at the super expensive deluxe slipcase edition of the TCON omnibus, only to find they don't carry it in-store. I did find the deluxe edition (still hardcover, no fancy slipcover) and was able to hold it in my hot little hands. I like how it looks, especially the holographic-y cover and painted edges. I didn't think to take the slipcover off (I think it does come off), so I wasn't able to look at the pretty wardrobe design under the slipcover. 

hopefully the video comes out ok. I took it to show the cover's holographic effect

 

omnibus back cover

omnibus sprayed edges

The question is: do I buy the deluxe omnibus ($60-75) since it has the sprayed edges and the pretty wardrobe cover design under the slipcover, which is what I like the most, or do I buy the deluxe slipcase edition omnibus ($150) as it has the nice red velvet slipcover with gold illustrations of Lucy & Tumnus, Aslan's head, and Digory and Polly on pegasus!Fledge, plus the aforementioned painted edges? Do I really want to pay an extra $75 or whatever for a book I'll be hesitant to touch (the spine and slipcover are in red velvet and I cannot touch velvet due to sensory ick)? It's probably not worth it to drop $150 on something I can get most of for $75. If only my Barnes & Noble carried it in person... I would dearly like to look at and touch the deluxe slipcover version. To be quite honest, I don't need another omnibus; I already have 2 paperback ones. I know that if I don't buy one of these, I'll regret it like I regret not getting the Barnes & Noble leatherbound edition omnibus... Ah well, money is made to be spent.

Anyway, you can look at all the current Narnia versions out this year for the 75th anniversary of LWW here: www.narniaweb.com/2025/10/harper-collins-completes-full-catalogue-refresh-for-narnias-75th-anniversary

To read my other Narnia Bloggin' posts, click on the Narnia label at the bottom of this blog post. 

How I rate a book

If I don't finish a book, I generally don't rate it; it feels unfair to do so since I haven't read the whole thing. 

I have never rated a book 1 star, that I can remember. Presumably any book I'd rate one star would be too badly-written, and I would hate it too much, to finish reading. 

Two stars ★★ : I disliked or hated this book and it was badly written. The last time I rated a book 2 stars was in 2016, and from my note it doesn't sound like I disliked it that much, just that it was "silly" and had writing that wasn't very good.

Two and a half stars ★★½ : I disliked or hated this book and it was not very well written. The last time I rated a book 2.5 stars was also in 2016, and I was surprisingly more vocal (as it were) about my dislike for the book: I called it junk. (Interestingly enough, I rated it even though I DNF'd it; I guess I felt I had read enough to give it a rating.)

Three stars ★★★ : I didn't really like this book, or liked it well enough but found aspects of the plot or writing lacking.

Three and a half stars ★★★½ : I liked this book well enough; it was fine. This is probably the most common rating.

Four stars ★★★★ : I really liked this book! Maybe I even loved it.

Four and a half stars ★★★★½ : I loved this book! It's not quite worthy of five stars though.

Five stars (the rarest) ★★★★★ : I LOVED this book and it blew my freaking mind!!!

Things that cost book ratings a half star: 

• not being very well-written 
• having a stupid plot point, such as an issue that would have been cleared up in five minutes had the characters had an actual conversation about it
• something happens that makes me angry
• being too sad
• being too scary 
• being too confusing 
• the villain/s do(es)n't get a (good enough) comeuppance
• the problem/s was solved too neatly/easily
• having typos or errors
• being wrong about something factually
• being wrong about something in my opinion (may or may not be factual)
• flat, boring, and/or unlikable characters, especially two-dimensional female characters
• a character being too perfect, a Mary Sue or Gary Stu (what's the nonbinary version of this? Ary Slu?)
• a shoehorned/unnecessary romance 
• a flat and/or boring romance 
• the ending is not happy (enough)
• the ending is happy(ish) but not enough to make up for all the horrors the characters went through 
• the author made characters zany or snarky or sad or grumpy etc. instead of actually giving them a personality
• specific things or concepts that annoy me (sexism, ableism, meddling, etc.)
• being too violent (without cause or just to be edgy)
• being too gory or gross 
• the author didn't do (enough) research into something in the book that I know about
• overuse of verbs and phrases (we've all read a book where somebody smirked a million times)
• a character complains too much, especially if it's the exact same complaint over and over 
• falling into tropes and/or stereotypes
• the book was too short and should have been longer/explored things more in depth 

Depending on how serious the offenses (lol) are, several can add up to cost the rating a half star, or one or more stars. A lot of this depends on my mood and how annoyed it made me. Like a lot of readers, my star ratings are based on vibes.

Ideally I would be able to use a half star symbol, but when I try it's just a weird box. Bring back the half star, Blogger! >:( 

Halloween reads from my work library

When looking up books with "ghost stories" in the title in my work's library catalog, I stumbled on this book called Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff, which I had remembered one of my Bookstagram friends having read and mentioned on Instagram. It's a middle grade book that won or was nominated for a whole bunch of book awards, such as the Newbery and Stonewall Book Award, so I knew it would be good. The story is about a kid named Bug who lives in a haunted house (not the attraction; their house is literally haunted) and is struggling with trying to fit in with their girly-girl friends, the looming specter of middle school (it's the summer before they start; also, pun intended), and, most of all, the loss of their beloved uncle, who may or may not be haunting them... Poor Bug goes through so much in this book, but there's a happy ending, thankfully. I was genuinely freaked out by all the ghost stuff (I'm a wuss when it comes to horror) and was rooting for them the whole way. I highly recommend this book, as long as the reader can handle a little scary stuff. You don't have to be questioning your gender to enjoy this book or get anything out of it; Bug's feelings about not being a girl the right way and struggling to fit in with the boy-crazy girls in their friend group reminded me of my similar experiences at that age (ah, neurodivergence). ★★★★

I also decided to reread Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (last read and reviewed here) during yesterday's evening ref desk shift. Carmilla predates Dracula, believe it or not. JSLF does a good job of setting the tone and building atmosphere in this Gothic story. [Spoilers for a book from 1872 I guess]  I had forgotten a lot of the details (all the young women in a like 30 mile radius kept dying off-screen, obviously because Carmilla was killing them) but remembered the gist (like how gay it was). What Carmilla does to get victims is basically a scam that she runs over and over again: her "mother" (possibly also a vampire, since she's described as pale and good-looking) gets some nobleman with a young adult/late teens daughter to agree to take her invalid daughter (Carmilla, under an anagram of her name such as Mircalla or Millarca) into their home while she, the mother, has to run off on an important/emergency trip that she can't bring her daughter on or tell them about. The nobleman and his daughter agree (him, because of chivalry and gentlemen being bound to assist ladies who ask for their help, and her, because she's lonely and wants a friend), and Carmilla/Mircalla/Millarca befriends/seduces the daughter and slowly drains her of life, while finishing off all the other young women in the surrounding area. She's gone by the time the daughter dies and people realize what has happened. Carmilla and her mother run this scam for Laura (the protagonist/narrator/victim) and her father by actually staging a carriage crash right in front of them! That's commitment, I guess, although vampires can only be killed in a specific way, so. Carmilla is killed in this book because the previous victim's father is a friend of Laura's father and goes and tells him about it, and they find Carmilla's grave and kill her before she can kill Laura. Too bad Carmilla can't lez out without killing the object of her affections, although probably for her the two pleasures are bound up together or something. The way the bloodthirsty vampire only preys on women when there's just as many men around (and let's be real, they're easier targets) suggests she gets pleasure from drinking blood and therefore only wants to experience that from/with women. My library's copy had a few scholarly essays about the book that I skimmed; they were about the usual "fear of the other" stuff that academics like to discuss about vampire books, but with an Irish focus as I guess the book was put together for Irish studies (I was confused about this until I realized that). I think the author of Carmilla was Irish. ★★★.5, not really spicy enough to earn a chili pepper

Reading slump + reading update

I've been on a reading slump lately that lasted over a month. I think it started because I wanted to read one of my many unread books with latine protagonists for Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month, and I think just the concept of "having to" read a specific type of book triggered my brain's ADHD* mental block against reading in general.

 

I did actually read one book (very slowly) during this time: this cute little book about historical and designer purses, which was actually very interesting and informative. I've always loved purses and fashion history, so this was a fun and interesting book to read. It was originally published in 2001, so the book only has purses up to that point, and has kind of a gap for the 1990s (too soon ago at the time to be considered historical). The writing is very similar to fashion editorials like they have in Vogue; lots of glowing praise for the fashion designers' creativity. My only quibble is that I wish she'd put the prices for the designer handbags. I don't remember if she put a works referenced list in the back of the book (another usual quibble of mine when it comes to nonfiction books). I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes purses and fashion history. ★★★★

 

In desperation, I decided to actually bring a physical book with me (safe in its padded book sleeve) to work, where surely the boredom of working the Thursday night shift would force me to reach for the book and read it, thereby breaking my reading slump. It didn't, but it did make me start reading an ebook on my Nook app (my second, sneakier reason for bringing a physical book to read)!

That book was A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by K.J. Charles, a sequel to The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (flash-reviewed here). This book is about brand new earl Rufus d'Aumnesty, whose hostile formerly-estranged family is fighting tooth and nail against this "interloper", taking any and every reason to question his legitimacy as earl, which brings us to the other lead, Luke Doomsday, whose mother may or may not have married Rufus' ho dad before he married Rufus' mom. Luke was a very young teenager during the events of TSLoCG (he's the smuggler chief's nephew), and he grew up to be a secretary (Gareth the baronet from the first book gave him an education). Rufus needs help sorting out the truth, his office, and the family books (which are all as fucked up as the estates and the family), so he hires Luke as his secretary. They're both super attracted to each other, fight it a bit due to the whole boss/employee thing, and fall in love. Luke helps Rufus with being an earl and dealing with his family, but he has secrets of his own, and his own agenda for being at the estate... This book was excellent, with a bit of a Gothic flair towards the end, and actually settled a mystery that began in the first book. ANG2SaS has the same themes of healing from childhood trauma as its predecessor. Luke has a facial disfigurement (scar from an attack), and Rufus is demisexual and dyslexic. ★★★★ 🌶🌶🌶  DM me for trigger warnings

As is usually the case, this broke me out of my reading slump and I started reading again like it was going out of style. As it was still Ace Week (my reason for picking the above book), I decided to finally start on the Murderbot Diaries, which I had bought (along with several other Martha Wells ebooks) during a charity bundle purchase thing. I'd been wanting to read the Murderbot Diaries ever since I first heard about them, and I'd really been looking forward to reading them ever since the trailer for the Murderbot Apple TV+ series came out (it looks so good. I need to get a free month of Apple TV+ code or get someone I know who has Apple TV+ to let me watch it). I love stories about sentient robots making friends. I was going to start reading them through Libby, but my public library doesn't have them on ebook :((( I started reading these books on Friday afternoon, and as of writing this (Sunday evening), I've read the first six books in the series plus a short story, and that's that I couldn't read for most of Saturday. I lied when I told you I was reading like it's going out of style; it's more than that: I've INHALED them. I am obsessed. They are so freaking good, and I love Murderbot (it/its pronouns). It's anxious and depressed and autistic (hates eye contact etc.) and aroace and nonbinary (duh, it's a robot) and deeply funny and sarcastic. Murderbot (Murderbot is its private name; to others it goes by SecUnit, which is somewhere between a human being going by "Human" and going by their occupation title instead of a name) dislikes humans but also can't stop caring about them. It'll be deeply annoyed by them then be like, "Is anyone else gonna protect these stupid humans and keep them alive?" and not wait for an answer. When its friends make it experience an emotion, it has to turn and face a wall. I love it so much. I need eleventy thousand more books in this series; I'm preemptively mourning running out of them. I recommend this series to anyone who likes sci fi action stories with a touch of mystery, and stories about robots gaining sentience and friends and dealing with what it means to be a person.  ★★★★ DM me for trigger warnings 

I'm writing this blog post instead of reading them because the epub ebooks are all on my computer, and Apple Books didn't transfer them over to my Apple Books app on my iPhone. Ugh. I'm counting down the minutes of this ref shift until I can go home and keep reading the series. This is basically me right now:

 Update: I made some Murderbot memes and posted them to my Instagram (I forgot to include the one above tho). My IG handle is in my Social Media note. 

*undiagnosed, but like let's be real

ARC Book Review: Cleaning Spells Before Courtship by Sarah Wallace and S.O. Callahan

The authors put out a call for ARC (advanced reader copy) readers for their upcoming book earlier this month, and I jumped at the chance. I was chosen to receive a digital ARC (the first 100 to sign up got accepted), which is so exciting and makes me feel like a real bookstagrammer/book blogger! 🤩

Official book summary:

To look at someone and to truly see them were entirely different.

Summer 1814: Moody fae Sage Ravenwing is on his way to the country estate of Wyndham and Roger Wrenwhistle - and very confused as to why he was even invited.

Still pining after Wyndham and nursing a grudge against Roger, Sage reluctantly joins the raucous house party, which soon adds a mysterious guest to their number.

Conrad Moore has come a long way from the docks of Bristol. Armed with a humble education, middling magical skill, and a great deal of audacity, he journeys to the Wrenwhistle estate to inquire about the open position on the Council.

Thrown together in the only remaining available room, the surly fae and cheerful human establish a tentative acquaintanceship. As they learn surprising lessons from each other - riding, swimming, and mending a broken heart - a tender friendship blooms and an explosive magical connection forms.

But just as Sage starts to yearn for a new future with Conrad, he discovers that the hardest lesson of all will lie in atoning for his mistakes and scrubbing his messy past clean.

The Fae & Human Relations series is one where you absolutely have to read every book in order, as each one builds on the one that came before. Cleaning Spells Before Courtship is the fourth and last book in the series (😭), but its establishing events took place in the first book. Sage and Wyn were fuck buddies, but Sage was in love with Wyn (without Wyn knowing) and took Wyn and Roger's whirlwind romance really badly (leading to the "light stalking by an ex" in my review's trigger warnings list for BSaBG). Sage said some really mean things to Roger and Wyn told Sage that unless he apologized to Roger, they wouldn't be in each other's lives anymore. I'm going off of what was recapped in the book, because it's been a while since I read the first one and I've kind of already forgotten  what went down between Sage and Roger. In the second and third books of the FaHR series, Sage is randomly mentioned in the Torquil Tribune gossip paper as having attended parties and events and sneaked off with various random men, which gives him a reputation. From these brief mentions, it was obvious that Sage was trying to make Wyn jealous and get over him, and I was sad for him and hoped that he would find happiness and love, so I was glad to see that this book is just that.

 

Anyway, Roger invites Sage to his and Wyn's country estate, ostensibly for a weeks-long house party they're having with their friends, but mostly so Sage can help Roger plan Wyn's surprise 30th birthday party and hopefully reconcile with him. The reason Roger gives for this is because if Wyn saw/knew Roger was meeting one on one with one of their friends, Wyn would suspect Roger of planning a surprise party for his birthday. I understand Roger wanting his husband to reconcile with one of his oldest ex-friends, but asking the man who is still heartbroken and pining after Wyn to plan his birthday party is kind of callous. Sage reluctantly accepts. 

 

The house party consists mostly of Roger's friends that we met in book one and then kind of never spent time with again, apart from mentions in the gossip column (understandably, since the romantic leads in books two and three didn't know them). Speaking of, Torquil and Emrys and Silas and Keelan are part of the party too, and the friends are all having a great time... while Sage watches from the sidelines. Luckily he doesn't have to be the sole single person for long, because Conrad Moore arrives. 

 

Conrad is a dockworker who learned about the open position on the Council for Fae and Human Relations (which Wyn, Roger, Torquil, and I think Silas are all on), and decided to travel to meet with Roger and Wyn to hopefully be allowed to interview for the position. Like, he doesn't know anyone, doesn't write a letter of introduction, just shows up. Pretty ballsy. He's a friendly and eager to please person, and Roger and Wyn are nice, so they invite him to stay with them and join their house party, only, wouldn't you know it? All of their rooms are filled up, so he'll just have to room with Sage. What a surprising coinkidink. You'll be shocked, just shocked, to learn that there's only one bed!!! Sage is pissed at this turn of events, then pleasantly surprised to see that Conrad is hot and ripped, then pissed again as his hints to hook up just go winging over Conrad's smiling head. 

 

The couples (and one throuple) at the house party start to do the whole wink-wink, nudge-nudge, jokey-jokey thing at the two of them, so Conrad and Sage decide to fake-date to get them off their backs. I think you can gather what happens after this decision is made. 

 

Besides the couple machinations and Roger and Conrad doing magic, this book consists of the friends just hanging out, eating, and having fun together. It was a nice change from the last book, which was all "working on magic at & for the Council" and stressful due to Keelan's unwanted engagement. It was sweet to see how our two leads become close and fall in love, with Sage learning to trust and be vulnerable and Conrad enjoying taking care of and protecting Sage. Sage also slowly befriends everyone and apologizes to Roger (hopefully that's not a spoiler since "atoning for his mistakes" is in the summary). 

 

I'm sad the series is over, but I've really enjoyed visiting this world and cheering on its couples. I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes Regency romances and queer love stories. Cleaning Spells Before Courtship comes out on October 4.

 

Score: ★★★★.5 out of 5 stars
Spice score: 🌶🌶
Read in: September 12
From: digital ARC

aesthetics moodboard for CSBC

Genres/classification: romantasy, cozy fantasy, Regency romance

Representation: gay MMC who is a man of color, asexual MMC, 2 nonbinary side characters who use they/them pronouns, a side sapphic character who is masc/butch (wears men's clothes), 1 poly triad, queernorm and racially diverse society with lots of queer side and minor characters, Roger has anxiety

Spoilers past this point

Tropes: close proximity, and they were roommates, only one bed, waking up wrapped around each other, rich x poor, grumpy x sunshine, morning person x night person, height difference (smol & tol), fake dating, they already think we're dating/fucking so we may as well pretend, catching real feelings while fake dating, found family

Trigger warnings: a character had hookups to feel wanted/avoid negative emotions and was not treated with respect (past), a character struggles with low self-esteem and feeling unwanted, unrequited love, past sex-shaming, food instability mentions, poverty mentions, amatonormativity

Book Review: Shade Spells with Strangers by Sarah Wallace and S.O. Callahan

London, 1814: hopelessly romantic fae Keelan Cricket has grown listless since returning to town. He agrees to help the Council study fae-human magic, eager to erase the memory of his passionate encounter in the country.

But the man he can't forget is now in London and, even worse, joining the project too.

Silas Rook-Worth hates London. His magic won't behave and he's weary of the prejudice he faces against fae-humans like himself. He's counting down the days until he can return to his hard-working, close-knit family — but he can't ignore the pull he feels toward Keelan Cricket, the man he slept with, and unkindly dismissed, a month ago.

As the two men gradually reunite, their mutual attraction blossoms into romance. But even a powerful magical connection cannot change Keelan's duty to his family or Silas' impending departure — and falling in love on borrowed time will force both of them to decide what truly matters.

I bought the third book in this series because I was chosen to receive an ARC of the fourth!!! Like the previous book, you do have to read every book in this series in order or you won't get what's going on. 

At Emrys and Torquil's wedding (the couple from book #2), a buff handsome workman, Silas, catches the eye of Emrys' best friend Keelan (a gentleman), and they hook up during the reception party. They part ways but can't stop thinking about each other. Silas is one of the fae-humans who writes to Torquil about his magic, and Torquil invites him and several other fae-humans to London to have their magic tested by the rubric Torquil et al. drew up in book #2. Obviously Keelan (a fae) is asked by his friends to help do the testing, and they meet again. It's super awkward but they're just drawn to each other, feel each other's presence in the room like a magnet, etc.

However, Keelan's mother (who is on the Council) sets him up with one of the fae-humans doing the rubric testing, a selfish and controlling rich girl from a good family who just wants a stupid arm-candy husband. Neither Keelan's mom nor the awful girl care if Keelan wants the marriage to happen or not, and both ignore or are oblivious to how he's suffering and how mean the girl is to him even though it's obvious to literally everyone else who sees them interact. I  couldn't believe that Keelan wasn't willing to stand up for himself and tell his mom and the girl that he didn't want to marry her. He was just waiting for someone else to save him from the marriage! Like I get that Keelan has a gentle personality, but the man is in his thirties. Stand up for yourself!

Luckily all is resolved, even the stupid third-act breakup that happened for no reason. There is an interesting lack of meddling in this book; it's mostly just Emrys and Wyn's grandma and Torquil's grandma making pointed comments to Silas about his 'secret' relationship with Keelan. That's practically nothing, compared to the first two.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot even if I thought Keelan was a doormat. This is a fun world to live in for a bit. 

Score: ★★★★ out of 5 stars
Spice score: 🌶🌶/🌶
Read in: September 4
From: B&N Nook

Genres/classification: romantasy, cozy fantasy, Regency romance

Representation: bi MMC, gay Black MMC, 2 nonbinary side characters who use they/them pronouns, queernorm and racially diverse society with lots of queer side and minor characters, I'm pretty sure Keelan's dad is autistic

Spoilers past this point

Tropes: initially rude love interest, that hookup you can't forget, they keep staring/trying not to stare at each other from across the room, I'm engaged to another but in love with you, let's make the most of it (sexually) until I have to get married, arranged engagement to horrible controlling person, we can never be together because we're from different social classes/standings, forbidden romance, rich x poor, secret couple think they're hiding their secret relationship/feelings successfully but their loved ones suspect something/become aware/totally know

Trigger warnings: controlling and emotionally neglectful parent, verbally abusive and controlling girlfriend/fiancee, a character is forced into an arranged marriage engagement without his consent, racism/speciesism against fae-humans, classism, mentions of working-class family struggling financially

Flash book reviews for the last three months

 I am soooo behind on book reviews ugh. Comment or DM me for trigger warnings and more info.

 

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen - K.J. Charles is an insta-buy author for me, so I snapped up this ebook when it went on sale. This is a Regency historical romance with plenty of action and suspense, and I couldn't put it down. A baron who recently inherited his title and estate in Kent learns that the local smuggler chief was his anonymous hookup back in London. There's a lot of friction between them as they parted on bad terms, and the baron almost testifies that he saw the smuggler chief's sister smuggling, but they can't stay away from each other. They go on cute bug-finding dates in the marsh and have to team up to save each other's families from bad men. While not related to KJC's other regency romance series, the theme of healing from childhood trauma is also present. I thought it was interesting that the smuggler chief's grandpa was a formerly enslaved man from the US.  ★★★★  🌶🌶🌶

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibberts - I've had this author's books on my mental to-read list for a while since a lot of bookstagrammers said they were really good. Despite my initial surprise that the book is set in England and consequently all of the characters are English, I was sucked in and devoured this book.  Chloe goes through a near-death experience (a car almost hits her on her hot girl walk) and she consequently decides to change up her whole life, since when it flashed before her eyes, it was really boring. She makes a list of things to do, like camping and 'meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex'. After her apartment building's hot super, Red, helps her get out of a tree while rescuing a cat, she enlists him to help her go through her list 👀 He's down bad for her so he agrees. Chloe is chronically ill, hence not having done many things in her life, and Red has trauma from his last rich upper-class girlfriend (which Chloe is, uh-oh) being horrible and classist to him. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a romance novel this much! This is definitely a kicking-your-feet-and-giggling book, but with a good amount of depth. I need to read the rest of the books in this series, which are about Chloe's sisters. ★★★★.5  🌶🌶🌶

 

I reread How to Keep House While Drowning since, well, guess. It's just as good and helpful as ever. I last flash-reviewed it here. 

I also reread The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su and Kate Rorick since I rewatched the webseries for the first time in a decade. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it! The webseries (really a transmedia series, as the characters also tweeted and used various social media to add to the story) is a really fun modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice. This book is the book version of that webseries, as Lizzie's actual diary, and it goes through the same stories as the webseries, with more behind-the-scenes stuff that didn't make it into the YouTube videos. For instance, Lizzie's tour of San Francisco with William and Gigi Darcy is described. It's such a great retelling that left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling, but I suspect someone who's never seen the TSDoLB webseries wouldn't be getting the same story out of it. I still recommend it, though. ★★★★

Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond - I got this book from the thrift store. It's set in Oklahoma in 2013 (aka before gay marriage equality). Amy is a lesbian and a baker who is in the closet at her Christian bakery job. Somebody outs her and she gets fired, so she starts working as a bridesmaid-for-hire since she loves wedding romcoms and is great at problem-solving. She also meets this cute lesbian engineer, Charley, but their dates are really sporadic due to Charley's demanding job, and Amy isn't sure where they stand. There's also friend drama and ex drama, and Amy struggles with her people-pleasing tendencies, being closeted at one job while bartending at the queer bar as her second job, and being true to herself. This book was not as fluffy as it looked, and there is tension with Amy having to go through lots of straight wedding drama while being unable to marry herself (hang in there Amy! 2015 is so close!). I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. ★★★★  🌶🌶

Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery

I bought this during Barnes & Noble's half-off sale since I had a giftcard. Here's the summary; this book is about the residents of a women's hotel, the Biedermeier, in New York in the 1960s. There's not much plot, and the chapters are loosely connected. Lavery has that retro chatty informative tone down perfectly, and he's an excellent writer. While I enjoyed this, a lot of the women's stories were anywhere from a little to very sad, and the last story is rather horrible (the epilogue softens it). I'd recommend this to anyone who likes reading slice of life stories, mid-twentieth-century books, and how New York was in the past. I'll give this away due to lack of shelf space. ★★★★

Book Review: Murder By Memory by Olivia Waite

A mind is a terrible thing to erase...

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty's most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.

Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the [person whose] body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes...

I discovered this book on Libby while looking through their Pride Month featured books. It sounded fascinating, so I joined the holds list and read it when it became available. 

Listen: this book is so freaking good! You already know I love mysteries, especially cozy and/or classic British mysteries, and this book is just that, only with a futuristic sci-fi setting. We're on a generation ship going from Earth to some far-off distant planet that humanity will live on several hundred years from now. They've figured out how to store people's consciousnesses or minds in "books", like documents in a hard drive, and you can just get a new body when your current one gets old and is no longer up to living. Consequently, everyone on the generation ship is functionally immortal. The generation ship is huge and high-tech, with lots of residential neighborhoods and businesses that people can run as they are interested; capitalism is no more, although there is mention of "posh" apartment complexes, so it sounds like there's still a little income inequality and class differences for some reason. The "Her Majesty's ship" thing makes me think this ship is English, which would I guess provide a reason for that, plus the whole "we're going to find a new planet to live on" which is colonization in a sci-fi way.

I was a bit confused at first, as the book just throws you into what is happening (Dorothy waking up in someone else's body), but that's actually perfect because Dorothy is confused as to what has happened to her, and it makes you feel her confusion. Dorothy has been offline for many years, her consciousness preserved in her "book". Unbeknownst to Dorothy, her nephew Ruthie (very Bertie Wooster-ish, if Bertie was also a software & mechanical engineering genius) wrote a program into the ship's computer that any ship's detective (which Dorothy is) whose book is destroyed gets their consciousness immediately put into the nearest available body. The thing is? Somebody was murdered right before this happened, and the murderer may have been the person whose body Dorothy is in... The chatty ship's computer is offline due to an electrical storm, so Dorothy has to figure out what's going on without any help or her detective status to get her places. Dorothy herself is one of those very practical British aunts who solves mysteries and knits, and she's queer! She's attracted to her accidental host's lovely ex-girlfriend (a fellow knitter who owns a yarn shop), but the ex-girlfriend hates her (ex's) guts and may have had something to do with the murder...

I'm going to stop there as I don't want to spoil it for you, but I really enjoyed this book and wished it was longer! The worldbuilding was very interesting, and I thought it was fascinating how they drank beverages that let them experience memories (a summer rainstorm, for example). I naturally loved the Library, where all the consciousness books are kept. There were lots of little mentions/analyses of human nature, and we meet interesting characters I hope we get to know better in future books (this is the first of a series). I cannot wait for future books!

Score: ★★★★.5 out of 5 stars (half star off for being too short lol)
Spice score: 1 instance of sexual attraction but otherwise zero
Read in: June 20
From: my public library - borrowed via Libby, read in the Kindle app

Genres/classification: mystery, science fiction, futuristic sci-fi, classic British mystery a la Agatha Christie (especially with the aunt element)

Representation: sapphic/wlw (possibly lesbian) main character, several sapphic secondary characters, several canon sapphic couples, gay couple, 1 queer male character of color (Asian, I think), 1 Black woman minor character. As this is a near-utopian future there is no homophobia or transphobia or racism

Trigger warnings: murder, drowning death, toxic relationship where one partner is constantly lying to and manipulating the other (possibly cheating as well), putting someone's mind/consciousness into someone else's body without the consent of either party, financial fraud, distrust of police mention