When it rains it … hails + Bookshelf-fairy update

So far, I’m giving the side-eye to 2020.

The good news is, I’ve been reading; re-reads, so the TBR isn’t dwindling, but progress!

As y’all know, we’ve had record breaking drought and jaw dropping bushfires down under, but Mother Nature has relented, in her own twisted way, and for the last week or so, we’ve had rain. So much rain. This time last year, our YTD rain was 5mm / .2 inches of rain. This YTD: 92mm / 3.6in. For a Florida girl, it doesn’t amount to more than an afternoon thunderstorm, but for Melbourne it’s a godsend. Except that the majority of that rain all came in one day – last Sunday – and not before the hail. OMG the hail:

One of the hail stones MT grabbed out of the garden, compared with a quarter.

All of its friends, stoning my garden.

MT and I might be a little odd, but we were at the back door, videoing the icy golf balls falling from the sky, running outside (this was MT – I have my limits) to put boards over the fish ponds and generally oohing and ‘holy crap’ing. When it was over though, MT discovered that our skylight in the bathroom was no more. Smashed to smithereens by a hail stone or stones unknown. Less fun, but really, in the grand scheme of things, no more than a drippy, albeit expensive, nuisance.

So, we caledl the insurance company Monday, and they sent someone out to temporarily patch the roof/skylight until the assessor comes out tomorrow. And, here’s the punch line: he patches the skylight with the orangest tarp you’ve ever seen resulting in a whole new look for our sea blue bathroom:

Rave? Bordello? Old-school photo developing room?

The glow on a sunny day is so intense it pulses out the door into the hall. It’s hilarious.

In Bookshelf news, the hail storm ended up putting paid on our planned progress to cover the next corner of the library, though we did make some headway. This bookcase, which is really two bookcases stacked:

came out, revealing something we should have remembered – that the bookcases were installed before the room was painted.

Oops.

Luckily, we still had the paint, and we always have painting supplies, so this was not as big a show-stopper as it could have been, or the hail storm proved to be. And we did get some temporary shelves up above the fireplace:

Our neighbor is back home tomorrow, and MT has everything setup to get the new rails installed, so maybe we’ll be back on track this weekend, though I’m not holding my breath: we have family in town, and my SIL, my niece and I are going to see Cursed Child on Saturday, an all day affair, and Monday MT and I are going hiking for my birthday, which is on Tuesday which is also the first day of the school year and therefore my first day back to work. Fate can be such a fiend sometimes.

Confessions of a Bookseller

Confessions of a Bookseller
by Shaun Bythell
ISBN: 9781782835394
Published by Profile Books on August 29, 2019
Genres: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Literary Collections, Letters
Pages: 381
Format: Hardcover

"Do you have a list of your books, or do I just have to stare at them?"

Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should be an idyll for bookworms.

Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who don't understand what a shop is, home invasions during the Wigtown Book Festival and Granny, his neurotic Italian assistant who likes digging for river mud to make poultices.

The follow up to his Diary of a Bookseller, a book I enjoyed even more than I expected, so when I heard this was out, I immediately went out and bought it.

Every bit as good as the first, though where the first was primarily wacky and funny, this one had a sharper, more contemplative edge and, as far as my memory goes, this one feels a bit more personal. The book he read/talked about made more of an impact with me in this book too, though I can’t say why.

A great read if you like books about books, or memoirs of misanthropic booksellers.

2020: So far so … so-so.

On a personal front, 2019 started as it meant to go on: crap. This is reflected in my year in books, which I’m not even going to review, because I’m 100% sure it’s crap. I didn’t come close to my goal, my participation in all the games this year was sub-par, and my participation on BookLikes in general was almost non-existent.

2020 is at least starting on a more positive note. We’re busy beavers here at the funny/animal farm, but we’re both in good health and we’ve had some great news on the business transition front that will make life much more cheerful – or at least, less stressful. My in-laws have run out of furniture and pictures to give us (I think / hope / pray), and I’m a lot in love with my new camera and itching to book my safari.

However, I’m still feeling down in the slumps, reading-wise. This might be because we’re up to our eyeballs in a home improvement project that has MT and I taking bets as to which of us is going to be the first to lose a kneecap in the middle of the night. I don’t want to count on it, so I’m setting my 2020 goal at 150 books, maybe 125. 2019 has me spooked.

Australia is also in the midst of trying to destroy itself; the stats are staggering, and I won’t hit you with them here, but every state and territory in the country is on fire in a really, really big way, and where the fire isn’t, the smoke is. I honestly believe it will be a miracle if, by the time it’s all over, there’s anything but sand and concrete left.

December 18th was the hottest day ever recorded over the entire country: the average temperature for the nation (which is roughly the size of the USA) was 107.4 / 41.9C. That includes Tasmania, whose nearest neighbor is Antartica. 3 days ago (Saturday) an outer suburb of Sydney hit 120 / 48.9C – the hottest place on the planet that day. Melbourne reached 111 / 44C. I mention all this because we haven’t had a day over 60 / 16C since Sunday. My AC is having an identity crisis, and Australian weather is weird.

Meanwhile, we’re all fine, but the chickens are complaining about not being able to get the smell of the smoke out of their feathers, and the cats have retired to bed for the foreseeable future; the fish don’t understand what the fuss is all about but are requesting someone do something about all the bees stealing their water. I can’t imagine a scenario where we’d be in serious danger, but I catch myself wondering if the car is big enough for 2 cats, 4 chickens, and 2 humans, and how many of each species would come out intact at the end; please God may I never have to find out.

Owl be Home for Christmas (Meg Langslow, #26)

Owl be Home for Christmas
by Donna Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250305312
Series: Meg Langslow #26
Publication Date: October 19, 2019
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

This was the only Christmas story I read this year, and I started it just as everything started going pear shaped in RL, so it took me forever to read it. I know this is a ‘me’ problem, but the longer it takes me to finish a book, the more scattered the story feels to me, so this entry by one of my favorite current authors got short shrift from me this year. Still, it was good; the mystery was well constructed and the holiday spirit was high. The Christmas dinner almost made me misty eyed and made me love Donna Andrews as an author just a little bit more than I already did.

Summoned to Thirteenth Grave (Charley Davidson, #13)

Summoned to Thirteenth Grave
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250149411
Series: Charlie Davidson #13
Publication Date: January 15, 2019
Pages: 292
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Charley is dead angry. She’s been kicked off the earthly plane for eternity—which is exactly the amount of time it takes to make a person stark, raving mad. But someone’s looking out for her, and Charley’s allowed to return after a mere hundred years in exile. Surely not that much has changed since then…right?

She’s missed her daughter. Reyes. Cookie and Garrett and Uncle Bob. Now that Charley’s finally back on earth, it’s time to solve the burning questions that still need answering. What happened to her mother? How did she really die? Who killed her? Is a batch of cupcakes the best medicine to mend a broken heart? The epic showdown between good and evil is about to begin. . .

The last book in the series; the one meant to wrap up all the loose ends, and it does so admirably.

When I read the first book, I liked it for the mysteries and the humor, though the humor was a little over-played (her penchant for naming everything grated on my nerves, and though she never stops doing it, it plays a much smaller part in the narratives of future books). As the series progressed, I still read them for the mysteries and I enjoyed the humor more because it became more balanced, but I also got stuck into the mythology Jones was using for the overall series arc. And I genuinely became attached to the wacky cast of characters that surrounded Charley.

This final book winds up the arc concerning the prophecies involving Charley and Reyes – and keeps the possibilities open for a future series featuring their daughter and her prophesied battle against Lucifer. Since the 13th book was meant to be the finale, there are no loose ends or questions – though there were a couple of didn’t-see-that-coming twists, one full-blown M. Night Shyamalan shocker, and a single misty-eyed moment I’m wiling to admit to.

The only bit that left me disappointed was the end-end; the part where we find out what Charley and Reyes do. It’s not anything short of a happy ending, but I didn’t like it. I get it, and I get why it was the perfect ending, but I still didn’t like it, and mostly for juvenile reasons.

View Spoiler »

While I’m sad to see the story end, and sad I won’t see the gang anymore, I’m happy with the series ending now rather than past its prime, and Darynda Jones has a new series coming out next year that sounds like it might be fun, so perhaps I’ll have a new series to love and look forward to.

I read this book for Halloween Bingo’s 13 square. 13 in the title, and 13th in the series.

Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe

Midnight at the Blackbird Café
by Heather Webber
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250198594
Publication Date: July 16, 2019
Pages: 336
Genre: Magical Realism
Publisher: Forge

Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café.

It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about.

As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to take her broken wings and fly.

I’ve always enjoyed Heather Webber’s cozy mysteries; they’re fun, well-written and usually have better-than-average plots. So when this was announced I was eager to see what she’d come up with when there was no murder.

She didn’t disappoint, though the overall tone of the book was a tiny bit too heavy handed for my tastes. The power of love is a wonderful thing indeed, but my nature is not one that is comfortable with being immersed in heart tugging storylines.

The book centers on two main characters: one coming to the small town of Wicklow for the first time, to see to the affairs of her grandmother’s estate, and at the same time is confronted with her heritage and connection to a town she’s never been to. The second MC is the emotionally neglected daughter of the town’s social maven, who has come back to town a widow with toddler in tow. But the true main character of the book is the town itself and its curious connection to loved ones who have crossed over.

It was a good read, though I sensed the author was struggling to bring balance to the heavier emotions; hints of humour came from most of the characters, but never quite took hold. If it had, I’d have probably enjoyed the book even more. Still, I’ll happily keep an eye out for more of Webber’s work.

I read this book for Halloween Bingo’s Magical Realism square.

An Artless Demise (Lady Darby, #7)

An Artless Demise
by Anna Lee Huber
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780451491367
Series: A Lady Darby Mystery #7
Publication Date: April 2, 2019
Pages: 372
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery

I thoroughly enjoy this series, and I enjoyed this one too, but I think it might be the one I liked least.

Anyone who has read the earlier books in the series will readily agree that Lady Darby has had an unarguably difficult and painful past. Her first husband, a famous anatomist, forced her to attend his human dissections to draw the illustrations required for his planned masterwork on the human anatomy. When her part was revealed upon his death, she was vilified and run out of London. Now she’s back, in love, married, and pregnant, and her timing is awful; burkers have been caught attempting to sell the body of a dead boy to anatomists, and it’s obvious he did not meet his end naturally. Then the nobs start getting killed in the streets of Mayfair and everyone is looking at Lady Darby again.

It’s a great story, but unfortunately, Kiera’s wallowing just a bit. Not as much as your average historical heroine cliche, but more than what I’d expect from this strong and talented character. Call it a justifiable response to the equivalent of PTSD, but she became a victim, and it was a bit disappointing, given all the adventures she’s had. Usually, this wouldn’t be as big of a stand out as it is this time, but the murderer was obvious to me from the start, so I had nothing to distract me from Kiera’s sudden-onset mousiness. She gets her mojo back in the end, so that’s something.

In spite of my nit-picking, it was still an enjoyable read overall, and I look forward to the next one.

Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson, #11)

Storm Cursed
by Patricia Briggs
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780425281291
Series: Mercy Thompson #11
Publication Date: May 7, 2019
Pages: 358
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

My name is Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, and I am a car mechanic.
And a coyote shapeshifter.
And the mate of the Alpha of the Columbia Basin werewolf pack.

Even so, none of that would have gotten me into trouble if, a few months ago, I hadn’t stood upon a bridge and taken responsibility for the safety of the citizens who lived in our territory. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. It should have only involved hunting down killer goblins, zombie goats, and an occasional troll. Instead, our home was viewed as neutral ground, a place where humans would feel safe to come and treat with the fae.

The reality is that nothing and no one is safe. As generals and politicians face off with the Gray Lords of the fae, a storm is coming and her name is Death.

My rating would indicate I wasn’t all that thrilled with this book, but I was. I thought it was a very solid entry in the series – it holds its own – though it isn’t the best.

I had, overall, three disconnects with the book that stick in my mind after 24 hours. From least important to most they are:

1. The blurb set up an unreasonable expectation for me. The blurb, coupled with the cover, made me think of the scene in X-Men 3, where Jane Grey unleashes the mother of all temper tantrums. The reality in this book, while horrifying in itself, is rather underwhelming in comparison; it’s not really a storm so much as it’s a killing spree.

2. I get it: Mercy really doesn’t like being bound to Stefan, even though she freely admits she consented and that he’s never, ever done anything to abuse her trust or exploit said bond. To Mercy I say: get over it already.

3. And this is really the stickler, the reason I rated a story I mostly enjoyed so low: animal cruelty and death. I get it – the story is about black magic that feeds on suffering – and I don’t care. I did not like the long swaths of descriptions; the story didn’t need it either – it was horrifying enough without Briggs putting images in my head I’m really not happy about. I frankly skipped large sections of the book when I discovered she was running with this “theme”. I can’t believe I didn’t DNF the damn thing, though the rest of the story was good enough that I’m glad I didn’t. But I’ll vet her next books far more closely in future and I’m skipping any that appear to revisit this crap.

Beyond those things, the story really was good. I loved Sherwood’s part in the story even though it was shades of Bran; Briggs still made it work well. I found Larry the Goblin King sort of funny, and definitely intriguing – I enjoy stories about, if not underdogs, people who are underestimated. It sounds like the goblins are woefully underestimated. I have mixed feelings about Elizaveta, though I’ll probably not miss her, and I enjoyed Mercy finally figuring out that her own strengths were unexplored. It took her long enough, but at least she got there in the end.

Overall a strong story if you can overlook the animal cruelty, which I can’t. My enthusiasm for this series has suffered a significant hit; I won’t go so far as to say I’m done, but I’m certainly looking at the next release with a lot more circumspection.

Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)

Wild Country
by Anne Bishop
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780399587276
Series: The World of the Others #2
Publication Date: March 5, 2019
Pages: 384
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

Relative to the rest of the books in The Others universe, this one was ‘meh’. But ONLY relative to the rest of the books. In general it’s a great story and Bishop continues to create incredibly readable stories centered in a world where humans are resoundingly not an apex predator. Or, at least, not the apex predator.

This is the second book in the off-shoot series called “The World of The Others”, but its placement on The Others Universe timeline puts it chronologically in front of the 1st book, Lake Silence; thankfully the author’s note at the start explains this and that the events in this book take place simultaneously to events in the last book of the original series, book 5, Etched in Bone. Given that it’s been a few years since I read Etched in Bone, I needed to re-read it first to reacquaint myself with the characters and events. Which then prompted a re-read of the entire series.

Wild Country is the story of the aftermath following the complete eradication of all the humans of Bennett, a small town in the western part of the continent (alternate universe, alternate names, but it’s generally based on North America). The residents were members of the Humans First and Last League, and responsible for the wholesale slaughter of an entire Wolf pack. After the Others retaliated, they took back the land Bennett sits on, and went about re-creating the town, bringing in a mix of Others, Intuits (humans, but humans persecuted for their uncanny intuitiveness) and select humans, experimenting to see if they could create a more cooperative community.

I was engrossed in this storyline – some of my favorite non-lethal bits of these books is how Bishop shows these wildly differing life forms working together cooperatively, finding ways to respect the differences and keep the similarities working harmoniously. But then she went all Wild West on me and I’ve never been enamoured of the whole Wild West genre. The showdowns, the gunfights, the cattle rustlers… meh. I’m not saying that she didn’t do a good job with it, only that it wasn’t my jam, and towards the end it just lost me a little bit. It also felt a tiny bit like satire; like an homage that put a toe over the line and got a little silly.

Still, my bias is just that; a bias. Overall the story was great and kept me up, along with a taco dinner I made way too spicy, until 2.30am. I hope Anne Bishop’s imagination is chock full of stories of The Others and their battles with the selfish gits that make up entirely too large a proportion of humanity, because I’m nowhere near tired of reading about them.

Death Comes to Bath (Kurland St. Mary Mystery, #6)

Death Comes to Bath
by Catherine Lloyd
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781496702128
Series: Kurland St. Mary Mystery #6
Publication Date: December 18, 2018
Pages: 266
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Kensington

This has been a reliable series from the start. Death Comes to Bath is not the strongest in the series in terms of mystery plotting or main character development, but the atmosphere, setting and secondary character development balance the scales.

After a serious setback in Sir Robert Kurland’s post-war recovery, Lady (Lucy) Kurland packs up and drags him to Bath for 3 months for the restorative water cure, dragging her sister along in the hopes that she will find a suitable man to marry. Sir Robert makes fast friends with their cantankerous neighbour and when he ends up dead, Robert and Lucy take it upon themselves to discover who, in one of the most disastrous families that ever was, might have committed the crime.

The outrageous dysfunction of the murdered man’s family almost lends an air of frivolity to the story, but not really. The plotting of the murder itself was semi-predictable; the murderer wasn’t a shocking revelation, though it wasn’t at all telegraphed. A few extra points go to the author for the plot twist that I only cottoned on to a few pages before it was revealed to the characters.

The character development between Lucy and Robert was sadly predictable, although also historically accurate, so no fault goes to the author. What was far more interesting to me is the continued exploration of Lucy’s sister Anna’s reluctance to marry because she doesn’t want kids. Historically accurate or not, I find her small story line compelling and it filled the gaps nicely for me when the story threatened to become stale. (It’s possible I mixed metaphors there?)

MT and I spent an all-too-short overnighter in Bath a few years ago, and all it’s done is whet my appetite for the city. The area of Bath this story covers is small, and almost cliched with its mentions of the Pump Room, but I still ate it up with a spoon.

Death Comes to Bath is a light and charming way to spend a few hours, and I will happily anticipate a 7th adventure.