The Cat Who Saved Books, by Sōsuke Natsukawa (author), Louise Heal Kawai (translator), Kevin Shen (narrator)

HarperAudio, ISBN 9780063095755, December 2021

Rintaro Natsuki is a bookish, unsocial high school student living with his grandfather, helping to run his grandfather's secondhand bookstore. When his grandfather dies, he gets even more withdrawn. An aunt he barely knows organizes the funeral, and makes plans to close down the bookstore, and take him home to live with her.

But during the week between the funeral and the day she'll come take him home, and the removal company will take away the books, some very strange events happen. The first strange events don't quite register how strange they are. Rintaro knows he doesn't have any friends at school, so he doesn't quite know what to make of it when he gets visits at the bookstore from a boy, Ryota Akiba, who wonders why he's not attending school and also wants to buy some books, and from a girl, Sayo Yuzuki, who is his class representative. She's worried about his non-attendance, and brings him his homework. It's a bit more undeniably weird when the talking cat shows up.

Misfits (Liaden Universe stories #15), by Sharon Lee (author), Steve Miller (author)

Pinbeam Books, ISBN 9781935224181, June 2008

Ichliad Brunner is a member of a minor line of Clan Lysta, a meteorologist, and for most of the events of this story, working under contract at a space station orbing the planet Klamath, which is unfortunately engaged in a nasty war.

Miri Robertson, at this point, is not yet Val Con's lifemate and one half of Delm Korval. In fact, she hasn't met him, is still hardly more than a kid, and is a corporal in Liz Lizardi's Lizardi's Lunatics mercenary company.

Winterfair Gifts (Vorkosigan Saga (Publication Order) #13.1), by Lois McMaster Bujold (author), Grover Gardner (narrator)

Blackstone Publishing, ISBN 9781481539791, July 2008

Winterfair has come to Vorbarr Sultana, and Miles Vorkosigan and Ekaterin Vorsoisson are about to be married. The wedding is planned, the garden is laid out for it (yes, in the winter; Ekaterin designed the garden and Miles is determined to have the wedding there), the gifts are arriving, and so are the guests.

Elli Quinn, Miles' successor as Admiral of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, is not coming, but has apparently sent two gifts. One is a Cetagandan genetically-engineered living blanket, which purrs. It's accompanied by one of Elli's ribald limericks. The other, arriving separately and a little later, is a beautiful string of pearls, with no limerick. 

Unthinkable: What the World's Most Extraordinary Brains Can Teach Us About Our Own, by Helen Thomson (author, narrator)

HarperAudio, ISBN 9780062847959, June 2018

Helen Thomson is a science writer with New Scientist, who became fascinated by the human brain, its complexity, and what can happen when that complexity goes wrong. In this book, she recounts her meetings and experiences with people with nine different, unusual brain conditions. This isn't a clinical textbook; it's about Thomson exploring how these conditions affect the lives of the individuals living with them. She also talks about what we've learned about these conditions and their origins, but that's not the main focus, here. The people are. And no matter how strange the conditions are, she always treats these people with respect, not as mere examples of how bizarre humans can be.

Emergency Landing A Short Horror Story (Come Join Us By The Fire, Volume 2: Book #15), by: Seanan McGuire (author), Natalie Naudus (narrator)

Tom Doherty Associates, ISBN 9781250811684, March 2021 (original publication March 2019)

Caitlin Wilson is a scientist, an epidemiologist, who, in the current situation, is glad to be able to say that she doesn't actually work for the government. She's a consultant. This doesn't help as much as she'd like.

What is the current situation? She traveling on business, this time flying out of the Atlanta airport. They've just taken off when she sees some flashes of light and feels what a less observant and less informed person would think was merely atmospheric disturbance. When Caitlin realizes that it was falling bombs and they were likely the last people to get out of the Atlanta airport, she flags down a flight attendant she knows from previous flights. She recommends that when wifi is turned on, it should be made free to all passengers, because as soon as some people have access to information about what just happened, unequal access is likely to lead to conflict and panic. 

Whiskers in the Dark (Mrs. Murphy #28), by Rita Mae Brown (author), Sneaky Pie Brown (author), Kate Forbes (narrator)

Recorded Books, ISBN 9781980029946, June 2019

After a major nor'easter hits northern Virginia, Harry Harristeen and her friends join the groundskeeping efforts for the National Beagle Club at Aldie. There's a major charity event coming up, Hounds for Heroes, a benefit for war veterans. Harry's two cats, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, and two dogs, Tucker the corgi and new addition, six-month-old Irish wolfhound puppy, Pirate, have come with her.

What should have been a pleasant and productive couple of days changes abruptly when one of those friends, Jason Holzknect, is found dead, with his throat cut. This terrible event is made worse by the fact that there is simply no evidence of who did it, or what their motive was.  It's clear the killer is frighteningly competent at killing, and very familiar with the grounds.

The Days of Flaming Motorcycles by Catherynne M. Valente (author), Natalie Naudus (narrator)

Tom Doherty Associates, ISBN 9781250807489, March 2021

Caitlin is a young woman living in Augusta, Maine, during the zombie apocalypse. She's surrounded by zombies; all the non-zombies, except her, have left Augusta for safer regions. She's even sharing her home with a zombie, her father. Her mother, who also became a zombie, wandered off.

Caitlin is recording her thoughts, observations, and experiences in a children's school notebook. The current one has a picture of flaming motorcycles on the cover. Her observations contradict much of the official information, still broadcast by tv and radio stations in places where the zombies haven't displaced the non-zombies. One of those observations is that the zombies have a culture.

Ten Little Fen: A Spade/Paladin Conundrum, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing, November 2021

Spade, SMoF (Secret Master of Fandom), forensic accountant, and amateur detective for sf conventions when necessary, is program director of SierraCon, an sf convention held at a relatively isolated hotel in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, just barely on the California side of the California/Nevada state line. Oh, and this convention is in November. He's filling in for the original program director, who is recovering from chemotherapy for cancer, and not able to do the job. He's not fond of either mountains, or snow, but once the convention starts, no one really has to go out, and the locals say the snowstorms are overblown and don't generally create real problems. Getting ready of the official start of the convention, Spade ignores the weather.

That's a mistake. As the official start of the convention approaches, a major blizzard closes in, flights are canceled, both attendees and guests cancel, and Spade has to remind the hotel's general manager of the unusual terms of their contract regarding cancelations. At least their Writer Guest of Honor arrived early, and the "Usual Set," a group of New York-based writers and editors who travel a lot, show up unexpectedly, just before that becomes impossible, and can be used to fill program holes created by the cancelations. Except, of course, Spade's troubles haven't even started. That happens during dinner that night, when one well-known fan nearly chokes to death, is saved by fandom's other traveling detective, Paladin, performing the Heimlich maneuver, and subsequently proves to have been poisoned. 

Origin Story A Short Horror Story (Come Join Us By The Fire, Volume 2: Book #7), by T. Kingfisher (author), Natalie Naudus (narrator)

Tom Doherty Associates, ISBN 9781250811677, March 2021 (original publication October 2020)

The last survivor of three fairy sisters works in a slaughterhouse, because even a fairy has to eat. She's the best butcher in the slaughterhouse, and she can handle animals too difficult for others. Her coworkers slowly realize she's living there, too, but that's no great concern.

Even more slowly, they realize she's making things, small things. like things somewhere between birds and bats, out of leftover pieces and parts from the slaughtered animals. That's creepy and wrong and very disturbing. But she's the best butcher there, and the foreman says that when one of them is the best butcher he has, he'll listen to the complaints. Then one day an old mare is brought in, who isn't really ready for death, but she can't do her old job anymore, and can't be sold for enough to keep her out of the slaughterhouse. The fairy persuades the butcher to let her have the mare, and makes a promise to the mare.

Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience, by Michael S. Gazzaniga (author), Johnny Heller (narrator)

HarperAudio, ISBN 9780062373410, February 2015

Michael S. Gazzaniga is a leading scientist in the field of cognitive neuroscience, having in fact helped to create the field as the study of the brain advanced. In this book, he discusses his life and his research. He did important, even critical, research on split brains (brains where the corpus callosum, the nerve bundle connecting the left and right sides of the brain) was severed--sometimes in accidents, but often intentionally, in cases where epileptic seizures were unmanageably severe and frequent. It was effective enough to be considered justified in very severe cases--especially as it seemed to have no obvious impact on normal functioning.

Second Chances 101 (Ripple Effect Romance #5) (Safe Harbors #3.5), by Donna K. Weaver

Emerald Arch Publishing, ISBN 9780989992879, September 2020 (original publication February 2014)

Francie Davis has struggled for years to support her family. Her husband, crippled badly in an accident years ago, and embittered by it, has died a few months ago, leaving only Francie and their son, Rafe, now heading off to college. He'll be attending Harvard on scholarship. Francie will only be supporting herself, now, but will be doing it on her own, without Rafe's help in the vegetable garden which has largely fed them for years. But Francie has her own dreams, long on hold, and she's now pursuing them.

Francie has gotten a job at the local college, and the benefits include a 3/4 discount on tuition. She'll be a full time student, and a full time worker--while trying to complete the harvesting that was not yet completed when Rafe left North Carolina for Massachusetts.

Alex Diederik is a history professor at that same local college, sharing office support with Prof. Kevin Eldred, and has a daughter, Samantha, who is also a student there. They're going through a rough period in their relationship, because Samantha, or "Sam," finds herself defending her divorced parents against each other. Vicki has remarried, a French man whom Alex, and we later learn Sam, both find rather creepy

The Early Conundrums: A Spade/Paladin Collection (A Spade/Paladin Conundrum), by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing, Inc., June 2012

Spade is a SMoF, a Secret Master of Fandom, i.e., one of the people who travel the country helping fan-run science fiction conventions operate successfully. He's mainly the guy who understands the finance side of running a non-profit, fan-run convention, but every so often, a puzzle or problem comes up, that Spade is able to solve quickly and quietly, avoiding trouble for the con. That's where he got the nickname, Spade, although in build, personality, and wealth, he's more of a Nero Wolfe than a Sam Spade.

Paladin is short, smart, pixie-ish in build, with elf-like, slightly pointed ears--and by her own description a bulldozer in her approach to problems, rather than someone with any finesse. Like Spade, she solves mysteries and problems in science fiction fandom. Unlike Spade, though she's very much a real fan like he is, she's also earning her living doing this. Both she and Spade want to keep sf cons as safe as possible; Paladin does this by targeting those who would prey on the children and young teens in fandom.

The Brass Queen by Elizabeth Chatsworth (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

CamCat Publishing, December 2021

This is just a really fun romp, steampunk style.

Not everyone agrees; on Goodreads, I see a whole lot of five-star reviews, interspersed with occasional one-star reviews. Or rants, as one of the one-star reviewers freely admits.

So, a bit of a marmite book. You'll enjoy it, or hate it.

In an alternate late Victorian England, Miss Constance Hartwhistle, daughter of a baron who is missing. Her mother died; her father went off on somewhat more adventurous explorations than he had while she was alive, and found a portal to an alternate world where his wife is still alive, but the alternate baron is dead. He decided not to go home.

Constance has been running the baron's secret arms trading business for months now, mostly successfully, but there are some challenges. First and foremost, she's 21 years old, and has been, until this, rather sheltered. Secondly, her uncle is, not unreasonably, convinced that her father died on one of his risky adventures into the Congo, or the Amazon, or whatever. He's now suing to force her to produce proof the baron is alive, or to marry a suitable man of noble birth within a couple of weeks, or, failing both, he will become the new baron. This will be disastrous not just for Constance, but for all the people living and working on the Hartwhistle land, because her uncle has very different plans for that land.

At the Reunion Buffet (Isabel Dalhousie #10.5), by Alexander McCall Smith

Vintage, May 2015

Isabel Dalhousie has agreed to host a party as the opening event of her high school reunion. Most of these people she hasn't seen in twenty years, and Jamie's opinion on reunions can be summarized as "if these people were important in one's life, you'd be in regular touch with them." Not that he'd ever say anything that harsh! But Isabel has agreed, and the plans are in place. The party is being catered, so Jamie doesn't even have to cook.

How Stella Learned to Talk: The Groundbreaking Story of the World's First Talking Dog, by Christina Hunger

William Morrow, ISBN 9780063046863, May 2021

Christina Hunger was working as a speech pathologist for young children, in Omaha, Nebraska, when she and her boyfriend, Jake, got an eight-week-old Catahoula/Blue Heeler mix puppy. They named her Stella, and started doing what neither of them had done as adults: potty training, walks, crate training, and of course puppy proofing their home.

But as she got to know her new puppy, she noticed behaviors in Stella and in the language-delayed toddlers she worked with. The children and the puppy showed similar pre-linguistic behaviors, the behaviors language-delayed children show before they begin to use words. Christina started to wonder if Stella, exposed to the same language therapy and same type of communication device, could learn to use words to communicate her needs to Christina and Jake.

The Perils of Morning Coffee (Isabel Dalhousie #8.5), by Alexander McCall Smith

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, ISBN 9780307907516, October 2011

 

This is an Isabel Dalhousie short story, centered around the mystery entangled with a philosophical dilemma that she encounters. Her husband Jamie and son Charlie are present, as are friend/housekeeper/babysitter Grace, and the handsome Brother Fox. (For those who don't know, an actual fox, who frequents Isabel's garden with her blessing.)

The core of this story begins with an accidental email invitation to coffee one morning that week, with two philosophy professors at a nearby university. Isabel hasn't met either of them, but she does know some of the work of at least one of them. She assumes they're interested in her journal, Review of Applied Ethics. She replies, accepting, then is very apologetically informed by the apparent inviter, Prof. George MacLeod, of the misfire of the software he uses to manage invitations and meetings. They wind up agreeing to meet anyway, only the two of them because the other professor isn't available, at a coffee house they both like.

Knot of Shadows (Penric and Desdemona (Publication order) #11), by Lois McMaster Bujold

Spectrum Literary Agency, October 2021

Penric, Learned Divine and Temple Sorcerer, is having a quiet morning with his family when a knock at the door brings a summons from Master Tolga, head of the hospice in Vilnoc. A body was fished out of the water in the port, and the body proved to be less dead, or at least more active, than a clearly dead body pulled out of the harbor ought to be. When Penric and his demon, Desdemona, arrive, they find that the body is indeed dead, but a sundered ghost, unable to move on to the afterlife and its god, has taken up residence in the corpse. The ghost will be one of the patients who has recently died in the hospice. More critical is the identity of the corpse. They need to notify his family, or friends, or someone, but the body was dressed only in a cheap worn nightshirt, with no indication of who he was.

While that question is answered when a clerk from the Customs Office in response to the story circulating of a man who fits the description of the head of the office, Master Therneas, who hasn't showed up for work for two days. Yet rather than an answer, this proves to be the start of a confusing and disturbing mystery.

A Favorite Son, by Uvi Poznansky (author), David Kudler (narrator)

Uvi Poznansky, March 2013

This is a retold version of the story of Jacob and Esau, or, in this telling, Yankle and Esav, their bitter rivalry, and the conflict between Isaac and Rebecca, about who is the "favorite son."

It's a modern retelling, with cars and planes and a chain of restaurants named after Yankle, who is the true chef in this family. Yet in many ways it retains the setting of the Bible's original story, with the family being desert nomads, with herds to care for, and the constant concern over enough water, and, most bemusing for me, we're explicitly told that the Scriptures haven't been written yet, and that Yankle and Esav's story will be part of those scriptures. To me, this last bit seems a very strange choice.

The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist, by Ben Barres (author), Nancy Hopkins (Foreword), Paul Boehmer (narrator)

Highbridge Audio, ISBN 9781684416776, September 2018

Ben Barres was a groundbreaking scientist in neurobiology, and groundbreaking as a transgender person in science. This is his autobiography, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in 2017.

Barbara Barres, even as a very young child, had both a strong interest in science, and a strong sense of gender confusion and belief that she was assigned the wrong gender at birth. She was, she was sure, meant to be a boy. Unfortunately, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was no one and nothing to tell Barbara that yes, she really could be Ben. 

Sherlock Holmes & the Singular Affair, by M. K. Wiseman

MK Wiseman, December 2021

With Sherlock Holmes recently deceased, Dr. John H. Watson has received a package left to him by his old friend. In that package he finds a story--Holmes' own account of an adventure he had before he ever met Watson. It involves high society, stage-door dandies, and a young woman wanting to know where the young man courting her has disappeared to.

Miss Eudora Frances Clarke grew up as neighbors and close friends with Mr. Tobias-Henry Price, until when they were twelve years old, his father died, and his uncle, whose heir he now was, took him away to his home. There was little contact, and then Tobias-Henry was sent abroad to oversee some business of his uncle's. Then he returned, proposed marriage, hinted at problems related to his business activities, and disappeared.

Except, as everyone assures her, Mr. Tobias-Henry Price is not missing. He's living the life of a cultivated gentleman in the London society which, due to being of far less prosperous family, Eudora has never been a part of. She contrives to encounter him leaving his club, and--the man is handsome, charming, altogether likeable, but he is not her Tobias-Henry. This man is a stranger. Everyone, including his Uncle, assures her she is wrong. But her Tobias-henry had a scar acquired in their childhood, which this man does not have.

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World, by Andrea Wulf (author), David Drummond (narrator)

Highbridge Audio, October 2015

This is a fascinating biography of an impressive scientist, whom I don't believe I ever heard of before.

Alexander von Humboldt was the second son of an aristocratic Prussian family, who used his inheritance to pursue a career as, essentially, the first real naturalist. At 27, he went on an expedition to South America, with one other scientist and a couple of guides. In the course of his expedition he invented the concept of isotherms, which made global study of climate possible. He collected specimens, climbed mountains, and took detailed notes on plant and animal life, climate, and the effects of wholesale clearing of trees and other inconvenient plants and animals. Humboldt's journey, and his letters reporting home on it, were widely covered in the newspapers, worldwide, not just in his native Prussia. He returned home, and continued to be both a celebrity and a working scientist--and in many was perhaps the first science popularizer. 

Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus (The Hinges of History #3), by Thomas Cahill (author), Brian F. O'Byrne (narrator)

Random House Audio, July 2000

Between 1995 and 2013, Thomas Cahill released a series of books called The Hinges of History, about, as one might guess, critical turning points the history of western civilization. This book, the third in the series, is about the impact Jesus, his teachings, and his followers had on history.

Bread Alone (Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 34), by Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Pinbeam Books, November 2021

This is a collection of four stories set in Lee and Miller's Liaden Universe--space opera, values that make my heart sing, an appropriate appreciation of the excellence of tea and of cats, together with helpings of romance.

These aren't Korval stories, but rather stories centered around The Bakery. In "Degrees of Separation," Don Eyr is a young, unvalued member of one small and poorly run clan. His love of baking born in his delm's kitchen, where the servants, at least, have time for him. His cousin the nadelm persuades the delm to send him off to be educated--and young Don Eyr decides to attend a prestigious culinary school. When he returns to Liad, he's a different young man, with a partner, Serana, formerly a member of the City Guard where the school is located. On Liad, they find not all is well, and decide to fix their little piece of it. 

Gaming Hell Christmas, by Amanda McCabe & Kathy L. Wheeler

Chisel Imprint, December 2021

This is the first volume of Gaming Hell Christmas, stories about six women who attended Miss Greensley's School as young women, now older, out in society, and making decisions about the rest of their lives. It includes two novellas, the first featuring Miss Alexandra Blessing, beloved but illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Winsome, and the second about her dear friend, Annabelle, the widowed Lady Ranstruther. 

Alexandra has lived with her father and his family since she was nine, and has six younger siblings. The two sisters still at home give her little peace, including happily disregarding the privacy of her own bedchamber. At 28, she doesn't expect to marry, but does want a home of her own.

Annabelle, after a year of widowhood following the death of her elderly and perhaps not very kind husband, Annabelle is ready for love and a happier life.

The stories take place over the same period of time, the Christmas season of 1796. These are Georgian stories, not Regencies, and while the legal status of women isn't any different, socially, they have just a little bit more freedom than they will in the Regency era. Thus, the ladies can, if discreet and careful, visit the exclusive gaming hell, la Sous Rose. And of course they do.

One O'Clock Hustle (Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery #1), by Joanne Pence

Quail Hill Publishing, June 2019 (original publication March 2014)

Inspector Rebecca Mayfield, a homicide detective with the San Francisco Police Department, is a strictly by-the-book cop. Outside of work, she lives quietly in a small, not quite legal in-law apartment, with her dog, Spike, who is a hairless Chinese Crested-Chihuahua mix.

And then one fine Saturday night, she gets called to Big Caesar's, a popular, fancy club where there has just been a shooting. There's one dead woman, and one suspect, caught standing over the body with the gun in his hand. He has a crazy story about being innocent, and seeing the actual killer leave via the window.

This suspect is Richie Amalfi, a charming, handsome businessman whose business and actual source of income isn't entirely clear. Richie, though, is "practically family" at Mayfield's home police station, with his niece engaged to marry another Inspector there. And however skeptical Mayfield and others are about his source of income, he has absolutely no record of violence. Yet, he's been caught red-handed, right?

The Dragon Waiting, by John M. Ford

Tor Books, ISBN 9781250269027, September 2020 (original publication 1983)

This is an alternate 15th century Europe, brought to us by the brilliant John M. Ford. 

Instead of Julian the Apostate, who only briefly interrupted the spread of Christianity in Europe, in this alternate history there was Julian the Wise, who lived long enough to prevent any faith from being banned, and any faith from becoming dominant over the others and being able to ban them. The eastern empire, its capital at Byzantium, remains strong and vibrant--and in the 15th century, is working to expand into western Europe. It controls about half of France, and parts of Italy, and wants more.

In other ways, this Europe is very familiar. Edward IV is King of England, Lorenzo de' Medici is a powerful banker and de facto ruler of Florence. Galeazzo Sforza is Duke of Milan, though in this world he's in the pay of Byzantium, and also a vampire.

Letters From the Past, by Erica James (author), Jemma Redgrave (narrator)

Whole Story Audiobooks, April 2020

It's 1962, in the Suffolk countryside of England, and the Devereaux family is prospering and happy.

But Evelyn has a secret she's never told her beloved husband, Kit. Hope, Kit's sister, has never felt completely secure in her happiness, despite her loving husband, Evelyn's brother Edmund, her successful career writing children's books, and her adopted daughter, Annalise. Julia, married to the oldest Devereaux sibling, Arthur, has been trained most of her life, by her father and new by Arthur, to believe it's her duty to be obedient, and that anything that goes wrong is her fault.

Fan Fiction: A Mem-Noir: Inspired by True Events, by Brent Spiner (author, narrator)

Macmillan Audio, ISBN 9781250821393, October 2021

This is a somewhat noir fictional memoir about Brent Spiner's time playing Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and an experience with an off-balance fan turned stalker.

Spiraner portrays himself as still rather naif and not fully aware what a fan favorite Data has become. One morning in his trailer on the lot, he's reading fan mail, and he gets a disturbing piece of mail. This one is a box, and its odor is soon explained by the fact that it contains a pig's penis. An actual pig's penis.

It is, allegedly, from Lal, the "daughter" Data made in the third-season episode, "The Offspring." Lal didn't survive the episode, and now "Lal" wants her daddy, Data, to join her...in death?

A Fairy Tale (Fairy Tale #1), by Shanna Swendson (author), Suzy Jackson (narrator)

Audible Audio, December 2014

Sophie Drake used to dance with the faeries in the woods behind her grandparents' house. Then the fae tried to steal her little sister, Emily, and Sophie rescued her sister and turned her back on Faerie forever.

Fourteen years later, Emily has left Louisiana for New York City and an acting career. She's just had a huge break; working as the understudy for the lead, she gets her chance when the lead has to pull out. She's a hit, and after that night's closing curtain, she and a few friends go out to celebrate. Along the way, they meet a guy named Eamon (my best guess at spelling, since I listened to the audio), and somehow it seems perfectly normal when he tags along with them. They wind up in Central Park at some point, and the next day, Emily's friends eventually work out that that's the last time they saw her.

The Uninvited Corpse (Food Blogger Mysteries #1), by Debra Sennefelder (author), Callie Beaulieu (narrator)

Tantor Audio, ISBN 9781977372147, March 2018

Hope Early, after a less than stellar turn as a competitor on a baking reality show, a divorce, and leaving her publishing career in New York City, has moved back to her little home town of Jefferson, Connecticut, and is making her living as a successful food blogger. With her family, as well as old friends and new, nearby, the future is looking good.

Then she attends the book launch of friend Audrey Bloom. Audrey is a gardener, with a profitable career writing about gardening, and this launch party is also a tour of her own garden. Hope's sister, Claire, a real estate agent, also attends, against Hope's advice. Claire wants Audrey to list her house with Claire; Audrey has no obvious reason to sell. It's potentially contentious.

Sleight of Paw (Magical Cats Mystery #2) by Sofie Kelly (author), Cassandra Campbell (narrator)

Random House Audio, June 2014

Kathleen Paulson moved from Boston to Mayville Heights, MN, to become the librarian of the small town's library while it was undergoing renovation. It's been about a year, the renovation has essentially been successfully completed, and she has a year left on her two-year contract. She's starting to consider whether Mayville Heights will ask her to stay, and whether she will want to accept if they do. The little town is very different from her prior live, but she's enjoying it, and making friends.

She's also acquired two cats, Owen and Hercules, whom she found as kittens, last winter at Wisteria Hill, the local feral cat colony. They're rather unusual cats; Owen can become invisible, and Hercules can walk through walls.

When Kathleen's friend Ruby finds a dead body, and quickly becomes a prime suspect in what proves to be a murder, we know the cats' abilities will be important.

The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield (author), Ray Porter (narrator)

Random House of Canada, ISBN 9781039002791, October 2021

This is a murder mystery that's also an alternate history about the late Apollo program and the Cold War.

We start with an Apollo mission that's a departure from our own history. Apollo 18 was planned, and planned as a fully military mission, but canceled due to both budgetary and political reasons. In this story, Apollo 18 escapes cancelation, and is focused on checking out the site on the Moon that an unmanned Soviet Moon rover has been investigating. Kazimieras "Kaz" Zemeckis, a test pilot and astronaut eliminated from space launches after an in-flight bird collision costs him an eye, is appointed as flight controller for Apollo 18, responsible for the safety of the crew from Mission Control. But once he thinks he's settled in and well connected with all the crew, several unsettling changes occur.

Star Soldiers (Central Control #1 & 2), by Andre Norton (author), Eric Michael Summerer (narrator)

Tantor Audio, March 2021 (original publication 1953)

This is an omnibus of two of Norton's science fiction adventure stories. They tell the stories of the start of human space travel and interaction with established, intelligent, alien civilization, in Star Guard (1953), and, four thousand years later, a story that reflects the spreading collapse of that same galactic civilization in Star Rangers (1953), later reprinted under the title The Last Planet (1955).

In Star Guard, humans have achieved star flight, but found an exiting multispecies polity in which the government, "Central Control," deems humans too aggressive for full membership, and assigns them the role serving as mercenaries in the on-planet conflicts of other species. For more technologically advanced cultures, Terra provides "Mech" units, using things we'd recognize as really advanced tanks, airplanes, missiles, and energy weapons. For lower-tech cultures, they provide "Arch" units, using swords, spears, nothing more advanced than rifles, and some form of radio communication between units. Kana Karr, Swordsman Third Class, arrives at Prime to enlist for his first assignment off world. The first assignment offered him is allegedly a simple police action, a good way to get some basic experience without jumping in the deep end. It's on a planet called Fronn, and it's apparently his somewhat eccentric choice to take all the course he can on X-Tee, Alien Liaison service.

Bark Twice for Danger (The Talking Dog Detective Agency #3), by M.K. Scott

Sleeping Dragon Press, May 2018

Nala Bonne is a private investigator, at least when she isn't working as a substitute teacher at a preschool. Unfortunately, she's the substitute for her own position, which she quit, while agreeing to work as a substitute until a new person is hired. There seems to be little urgency behind this supposed search.

Luckily, right now, her school is on a break, and she can concentrate on her investigative business--which has been mostly investigating dating partners for women who have begun to suspect something is wrong. There's also some insurance investigation, which she'd prefer to do more of.

Nala's advantages include having been taught the skills of investigation by her father, a police chief, the fact that she's the daughter of the police chief, and the fact that she has a very smart rescue German shepherd--who can talk.

Yes, that's right. Max the dog can talk. This means that unlike most canine sidekicks in mysteries, he can tell her not only that he smells something, but what he smells.

Nala's latest case is a departure from her norm; it's an identity theft case. Abby Lowenstein has had some very expensive stuff charged to her card. She's canceled the card and gotten the charges removed, but she wants the person responsible caught. And a very nice lady at the shelter where she adopted her cat gave her a card--Nala's card. The nice lady at the shelter is Nala's friend Karly.

A case is a case, and Nala takes it.

It's a Wonderful Woof (Chet and Bernie Mystery #12), by Spencer Quinn (author), Jim Frangione (narrator)

Recorded Books, ISBN 9781705020340, October 2021

It's the holiday season, even in Arizona, and Chet and Bernie have a new case walking in the door. Lauritz Vogler, a man with an unfamiliar accent who describes himself as "Mittel European Goulash," offer Bernie a $5,000 retainer to investigate a matter concerned with Baroque art. This isn't Bernie's kind of case, and Christmas is coming. It seems like it's an excellent case for fellow P.I. Victor Klovsky. Victor is the timid type and prefers to avoid direct conflict, but he's a whiz at online research, and this case seems right up his alley. Bernie refers Vogner to Victor.

A couple of days later, he gets a call from Victor's mother, saying that Victor is missing.

Murder by Misrule (Francis Bacon Mystery #1), by Anna Castle (author), Joel Froomkin (narrator)

Anna Castle, November 2017 (original publication March 2014)

Francis Bacon is a barrister of Gray's Inn, shockingly young for it, and currently in disfavor with Queen Elizabeth due to an ill-received proposal for law reform. Being unable to be received at court, or even by friends who are at court, is a significant obstacle to his ambitions, and even to his ordinary responsibilities.

It does not really look like help when his powerful uncle, Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer and Queen Elizabeth's most trusted adviser, asks him to quietly investigate the death of another, far more senior, barrister of Gray's. For various reasons, it's suspected this murder may involve Catholic intrigue aimed at overthrowing and replacing the Queen. Bacon recruits four students, whom he is now tutoring since their former tutor has been murdered (yes, of course.)

Patience and Not-Forsaken, by Alix E. Harrow (author), Jennifer Nittoso (narrator)

Audible Studios, January 2017

Patience Not-Forsaken Gravely's mother died in an asylum, suffering from what sounds like bipolar disorder. Patience herself has been diagnosed as having "a nervous disposition." When her father inherits Gravely doctor who treated her mother and is treating her recommends that a quiet, rural location will be good for Patience.

It's the 1950s, and Patience is "difficult." She loves superhero comics in general, and Wonder Woman in particular, to the grim disapproval of her father. In Gravely House, she meets a girl in the mirror. The girl has no name, and Patience gives her one of her own, Not-Forsaken. But who is Not-Forsaken, and why is she in the mirror?

The Scholars of Night, by John M. Ford

Tor Books, ISBN 9781250269164, September 2021 (original publication February 1988)

This is a Cold War spy thriller, published in 1988, when the Cold War was still on and fear of nuclear annihilation still felt very, very imminent. Ford was a great writer, and this book gives the lie to the defense for the sexism and other attitudes we are often urged not to criticize in older works "He was of his time." Ford's female characters have to deal with the sexism and misogyny of the time, but they themselves are strong, intelligent, independent, and not treated by Ford as if they deserve the attitudes they have to struggle against.

Nicholas Hansard is a young professor of history at a small college, who also has a tiny toehold in the world of espionage--though he's not entirely aware of it. He just does some research and document authentication for The White Group, and has no real idea what The White Group really is.

The really important thing he doesn't know, though, is that his mentor, Allan Berenson, is a spy, theoretically part of the US intelligence world, but in reality working for the Russians. When Berenson dies, apparently of a heart attack but in fact a carefully staged elimination of the double agent, things start spinning out of control, not just in Hansard's life, but, especially there.

The Post Box at the North Pole, by Jaimie Admans

HQ Digital, October 2021

Sasha Hansley hates Christmas, and has ever since her mother was killed in a car crash, and her father, Percy, after recovering from his injuries in the crash, left England. He calls, but he doesn't come home, not even for Christmas, not even when he has promised to do so. Instead, he asks her to join him on one travel adventure after another, and she refuses, having no desire to travel. Sasha occupies her time with one dead-end job after another, feeling unimportant and unvalued. Her father, though, thinks she's now the manager of a major hotel, and turned its fortunes around. She didn't tell him that; it was a misunderstanding when she applied for the job, told him, and he decided that she obviously got it. Now, she feels he's finally proud of her, and can't bear to tell him it's not true.

Right now, she's just lost her latest job, with a dog-walking business, because the owner's sister needed the job.

And her father calls from Norway, sounding old and frail, and telling her that he's had a heart attack. He wants her to come to the Christmas village where he's living and working. He's insistent. He's already paid for her tickets. And he needs her.

Operation Bailey Wedding (The Baileys #3.5), by Piper Rayne

Piper Rayne, July 2019

Holly Radcliffe and Austin Bailey are getting married, and it's going to be a very big wedding in a small town, Lake Starlight. That's because the Bailey family consists of nine siblings, their grandmother, Dori, and the siblings' significant others. It's a family that knows everyone and has had a large impact, and Austin Bailey, the oldest sibling, is the first to get married.

This is a lot of people to manage in a novella, but overall, it works.

Austin is a science teacher at the high school, and the coach of the school baseball team. They've never had a good enough record to go to the state competition, but this year, as the wedding closes in on them, the team is winning, and clearly headed for that state competition. If they do go, it will coincide with what's supposed to be his and Holly's honeymoon trip to Hawaii.

So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix (Remixed Classics #2,) by Bethany C. Morrow (author), Adenrele Ojo (narrator)

Macmillan Audio, ISBN 9781250815507. September 2021

It's 1863, and with the Civil War still raging, the March family--Alcott and Mamie (Margaret), and their daughters Meg, Jo (Johanna), Beth (Bethlehem), and Amy (Amethyst), are beginning free, settled lives in the Freed People's Colony of Roanoke Island. Mr. March built their home with materials supplied by the Union Army. As the book starts, Alcott March has gone off to the Corinth, MS Contraband Camp to offer advice and labor there.

Mamie is working as a secretary in the camp administration office, the March family being among the small number of freed slaves who are literate. Meg is a teacher of young black students, and she's liked but not entirely respected by the white volunteer teachers from the north. She's every bit the homebody set on marriage and family that Louisa May Alcott's Meg is.

Companions to the Moon, by Charles de Lint

Triskell Press, ISBN 978920623145, April 2012 (original publication Realms of Fantasy, June 2007)

Record shop owner Mary is beginning to suspect that her common law partner, a rock musician named Edric, is being unfaithful. They've been together seven years, and there's always been something a bit mysterious about him; it's part of what attracted her. Yet recently, they're doing household chores separately that they've always done together. He says it's more "efficient." She misses that feeling of togetherness. He's not bringing someone home when she's working; there's no sign of that. He also doesn't seem to have been with anyone but his usual friends when he's been out and comes home.

The Bronze Lie: Shattering the Myth of Spartan Warrior Supremacy, by Myke Cole

Osprey Publishing, February 2021

Myke Cole sets out to deconstruct the myth of Spartan warrior supremacy, not out of hostility to the Spartans, but frustration with the mythologizing of these very real people who had gifts and virtues, but also flaws. Another significant motivation is the misuse of the myth rather than the reality of the Spartans in support of hard right ideologies, and not just in the US, but at least throughout the cultural West.

The Spartans are revered and nearly worshipped as the ideal warriors, men who valued war, despised money, and served the good of the state over personal reputation and comfort. What Myke Cole shows us, in this careful, well-researched, and very readable book, is a culture of men as variable and human as any others. They were in some ways better soldiers than others contemporary to them. The Spartan hoplites did some regular training. It was more than most other Greek city-states did, but nothing close to the professionalism attributed to them by myth. It did give them a degree of organization and discipline that was, for most of their history, rare in the armies of other contemporary armies. That was a real advantage, especially when fighting other Greek hoplites.

Into the Land of the Unicorns (The Unicorn Chronicles #1), by Bruce Coville (author, narrator), David Baker (narrator), Karel Blakeley (narrator), Daniel Bostick (narrator), Ryan Canning (narrator), Alex Dolbear (narrator), Shirley Fenner (narrator), Tim Fox (narrator), Kate Huddleston (narrator), Michael Larkin (narrator), Mimi Mead (narrator), Lauren Synger (narrator)

Full Cast Audio, ISBN 9781934180907, 2009 (original publication 1994)

Cara and her grandmother, whom she has lived with since her mother died and her father left, are on their way home from the library when they realize they are being followed. Cara is surprised and frightened when her grandmother agrees they are really being followed--and that the man is a threat. It's not long before Cara, wearing her grandmother's special necklace, is standing at the top of a bell tower, about to follow Grandma's instructions to wait for the the twelfth toll of the bell, call out "Luster, bring me home," and jump.

Time Traders II: The Defiant Agents / Key Out of Time (Time Traders/Ross Murdock #3-4), by Andre Norton (author), Graham Rowat (narrator)

Tantor Audio, May 2021 (original publication January 2001) (The Defiant Agents original publication February 1962) (Key Out of Time original publication March 1963)

In The Defiant Agents, Travis Fox is part of a new and different mission, establishing a new colony on a habitable world, called Topaz, that's uninhabited now but may once have been part of the collapsed Galactic Empire that the Americans and Russians have both looted advanced technology from. The new colony will be composed mostly of Apaches like Travis. They have been subjected to a new process called Redax, that revives ancestral memory, the memories of their ancestors from the 19th century.

What they haven't been told is that the effects of Redax may leave them believing they really are Apaches of the 19th century. What no one knew is that the Russians are a little bit ahead of them in establishing a colony on Topaz, with Tatars. They've been subjected to a process similar to Redax, regressed to the memories of their Mongol ancestors.

Dog Boys, by Charles de Lint

Triskell Press, ISBN 9780920623169, November 2012

Brandon's family has just moved from Atlanta to a gated community in the (fictional) southwestern city of Santo del Vado Viejo, and for reasons mysterious to Brandon, they're sending him to the local public high school. There are Mexican gangs, Indian gangs, and he's the new Anglo outsider. He has a quite sensible plan to keep his head down.

Unfortunately, during his first week, he sees a big, tough Mexican guy bullying a very petite Indian girl. He steps in to protect the girl, Rita, and succeeds for the moment. Too bad the bully, Bambino, is the younger brother of one of the leaders of the 66 Bandas gang. Brandon and Rita are now both going to be targets.

Crow Roads, by Charles de Lint

Triskell Press, April 2012 (original publication in The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, Viking,2007)

It's 1967, and Annie is a teenager living in Tartown, outside Newford, a tough area where everyone is poor. One afternoon after school, she's hanging out at the laundromat with a friend, when a very handsome, unusual young man shows up outside Ernie's pool room. His good looks, long black hair, and general hippie look makes him seem an easy target for the local tough boys--and it doesn't turn out the way they expect.

To Catch a Bad Guy (Janet Maple #1), by Marie Astor

Marie Astor, August 2012

Janet Maple, graduate of Columbia Law School, four years in the DA's office, with a prized job in the investigations office, along with a handsome boyfriend, Alex, working alongside her, thought she was on her way to the promotion and the career she wanted, bagging Wall Street bad guys.

Then Alex gets the promotion, she gets laid off, and she's struggling to support herself and her dog, Baxter, and find a new job without using her ex-boyfriend as a reference. When her oldest and once closest friend, Lisa Foley, calls her with an off of a job as Assistant General Counsel at Bostoff Securities, she accepts. She's working on Wall Street instead of hunting Wall Street bad guys, but she can play a role in keeping Bostoff Securities on the right side of the law, right?

It's not long before she realizes there's something wrong at Bostoff. Their five biggest customers are hedge funds with dubious reputations, and their documentation seems to be incomplete--ownership data, for instance, is missing. Yet her ability to investigate is limited, because most of the legal work is done by outside counsel Tom Wyman. Even her friend and boss, Lisa, the General Counsel, has very little real work. Why was Janet even hired?

The Butter Spirit's Tithe, by Charles de Lint

Triskell Press, April 2012 (original publication January 2004)

Conn O'Neill is a brilliant guitarist, but not a commanding lead performer, and that's why he's working as a janitor in an office building when he meet the Butter Spirit, a rather mean and vengeful spirit, and unintentionally disrespects him. The spirit curses him for seven years, and says that at the end of the seven years, Conn will be his tithe to the Grey Man.

Ring Shout, by P. Djèlí Clark

Tordotcom, ISBN 9781250767011, October 2020

I really don't read horror, honest.

Except, as I've said before, quite recently I think, when I do. P. Djèlí Clark seems to be getting almost a permanent pass for his horror. I don't look at it and say, no, it's horror; I look at it and say, oh, it's Clark.

It's the 1920s, with Prohibition, Jim Crow, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. But this is an alternate America. D. W. Griffith is a sorcerer, and the movie Birth of a Nation is a spell.

Not all the Klansmen are humans. Monsters are coming through from somewhere else, and they have their onw agenda, for which the KKK is useful.

Three young black women are friends and part of a resistance force against the monsters, which they call Ku Kluxes--Cordelia Lawrence, Sadie Watkins, and Maryse Boudreaux. 

Maryse is our viewpoint character, with a book of African-American folktales, and a magic sword that comes to her when she needs it. Sadie has her rifle, a Winchester 1895, which she calls Winnie. Cordelia is called Chef by everyone, but she doesn't cook food. She served in WWI, disguised as a man, and is an explosives expert.