Stacking the Shelves (592)

This is certainly an interesting batch, isn’t it? Ironically, the prettiest cover might be Haunt Sweet Home – either that or The Phoenix Bride. Full Speed to a Crash Landing is definitely the most ‘interesting’ title, while it and The Bloodless Princes are the books I’m most looking forward to out of this week’s rather large stack.

For Review:
Adam Unrehearsed by Don Futterman
Alfred Dreyfus by Maurice Samuels
The Bloodless Princes (Fireborne Blade #2) by Charlotte Bond
A Brilliant Life by Rachelle Unreich
Full Speed to a Crash Landing (Chaotic Orbits #1) by Beth Revis
Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker
Henrietta Szold by Francine Klagsbrun
Horizons Blossom, Borders Vanish by Anna Elena Torres
The Last Ships from Hamburg by Steven Ujifusa
A New Lease on Death by Olivia Blacke
Newshawks in Berlin by Larry Heinzerling and Randy Herschaft with Ann Cooper
On Her Own by Lihi Lapid, translated by Sondra Silverston
The Phoenix Bride by Natasha Siegel
Propaganda and Persecution by Renee Poznanski
The Scrolls of Deborah (Desert Songs Trilogy #1) by Esther Goldenberg
Spinoza by Ian Buruma
Stranger in the Desert by Jordan Salama
Sweet Malida by Zilda Joseph
Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado
What We Sacrifice for Magic by Andrea Jo DeWerd


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Stacking the Shelves (591)

A bigger stack this week than the last several. That’s how it goes!

The prettiest cover feels like a tie between The Scent of Hours and Truly Madly Magically. I think they are both pretty just not in the same way – which makes it more difficult to judge. The book that’s making my curiosity bump itch is Lost to Eternity – because it’s a followup to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (AKA “the one with the whales”) and I LOVED that movie.The book I’m looking most forward to is Passions in Death by J.D. Robb. I always look forward to the next In Death book because I need to find out how all my peeps are doing!

For Review:
Burn (Fury Brothers #3) by Anna Hackett
Every Time We Say Goodbye by Natalie Jenner
The Forbidden Daughter by Zipora Klein Jakob
Gaytheist by Lonnie Mann and Ryan Gatts
The Holocaust by Dan Stone
Jack Ruby by Danny Fingeroth
Lost to Eternity (Star Trek: The Original Series) by Greg Cox
The Lost Van Gogh by Jonathan Santlofer
Passions in Death (In Death #59) by J.D. Robb
The Scent of Hours by Barbara O’Neal
The Secret That Is Not a Secret by Jay Michaelson
Truly Madly Magically (Witchlore #3) by Hazel Beck
You’ll Never Find Me (Angelhart Investigations #1) by Allison Brennan

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner


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Stacking the Shelves (590)

A bit of a short stack this week, not helped by cutting things off a day early to get stuff done AND the books that don’t have cover art yet.

For Review:
Asunder by Kerstin Hall
Between Dragons and Their Wrath (Shattered Kingdom #1) by Devin Madson
A Jewel in the Crown (Secret Churchill Files #1) by David Lewis
The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer
Murder at King’s Crossing (Wrexford & Sloane #8) by Andrea Penrose


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Stacking the Shelves (589)

An interesting batch of covers that should be twice as big, but half the books I picked up this week don’t have cover art yet! So what you see is not exactly what I got.

This is another eclectic batch of covers as well, particularly House of Open Wounds with its extremely busy cover. Then again, based on the first entry in its series, City of Last Chances, I suspect that cover is a case of ‘truth in advertising’ and that it will be an extremely busy book as well! Although at the time I reviewed City of Last Chances for Library Journal it read as if it was a standalone. Before I read the second book, I’m planning to go back and listen to the audio to try and figure out what clues I missed.

For Review:
A Body at the Dance Hall (London Ladies’ Murder Club #3) by Marty Wingate
Death on the Tiber (Flavia Albia #12) by Lindsey Davis
Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca
Januaries by Olivie Blake
She Who Knows: Firespitter by Nnedi Okorafor

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Book of Phoenix (Who Fears Death #0) by Nnedi Okorafor (ebook and audio)
House of Open Wounds (Tyrant Philosophers #2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky (ebook and audio)

Borrowed from the Library:
Ghosts of Honolulu by Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll


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Stacking the Shelves (588)

This week’s covers fall into two categories. Either they’re really pretty or they’re just pretty weird, and not much in the middle. As much as I can’t resist a library, I think the prettiest covers are Daughter of the Merciful Deep and The God and the Gumiho, although I could certainly understand if someone liked Lady Eve’s Last Con better than either. As far as weird goes, well, I was already headed down an internet rabbit hole when I spotted Centaur and Sensibility and decided “what the heck” because seriously, WTF?

After having said all of that the book in this stack I’ve been most looking forward to is the next Gamache book by Louise Penny, The Grey Wolf. Nineteen books in and that series is STILL awesome.

For Review:
Convergence Problems by Wole Talabi
Daughter of the Merciful Deep by Leslye Penelope
The God and the Gumiho (Fate’s Thread #1) by Sophie Kim
The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Gamache #19) by Louise Penny
Lady Eve’s Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow
The Underground Library by Jennifer Ryan

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed (ebook and audio)
Centaur and Sensibility (Regency Bestiary for Fine Ladies and Gentlemen #1) by Quenby Olson
Manticore Park (Regency Bestiary for Fine Ladies and Gentlemen #2) by Quenby Olson


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Stacking the Shelves (587)

How is it that something that is so ubiquitous it is literally called ‘the common cold’ manages to make a person feel so uncommonly miserable with so little warning? You’d think I’d get plenty of reading done while I’m sniffling and coughing, but looking down to read just makes everything worse. I think it’s finally on its way out, but it feels like it’s taking twice as long to leave as it did to arrive.

Yuck. And I repeat. YUCK.

Something definitely not yucky that I participate in every year is serving on one of the American Library Association’s adult book awards committees. This year it’s the Sophie Brody Medal Committee, which administers “an award to the U.S. author of the most distinguished contribution to Jewish literature (fiction and/or non-fiction) for adults published in the United States” published during the year. In this particular case, published during the year 2024.

Being on one of the ALA book award committees, whichever committee it happens to be in a given year, does influence which books I pick up from NetGalley and Edelweiss, and boxes of books show up at my front door on a regular basis. So the titles that may be under consideration will appear in my stacks, but won’t be noted as such, and this is the last time I’ll mention the committee until the winner(s) are officially announced in January 2025. Which seems like a lifetime from now and already too damn close, both at the same time.

For Review:
The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee
Dear Edna Sloane by Amy Shearn
Fervor by Toby Lloyd
The Goldie Standard by Simi Monheit
In the Shadow of the Greenbrier by Emily Matchar
An Intrigue of Witches (Secret Society #1) by Esme Addison
Judaism is About Love by Shai Held
The Kill List (Inspector Anjelica Henley #3) by Nadine Matheson
Mastering the Art of French Murder (American in Paris #1) by Colleen Cambridge
A Murder Most French (American in Paris #2) by Colleen Cambridge
Opening Doors by Hasia R. Diner
Summer’s End (Shady Hollow #5) by Juneau Black
To Be A Jew Today by Noah Feldman
Toward a Holy Ecology by Ellen Bernstein


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Stacking the Shelves (586)

My murder-y mood continues – so when I saw book 5 in the Nell Ward series, A Trace of Hares, come up on Edelweiss I decided to just go for the whole series. I’ll be reading the first book in the series over the weekend, so hopefully I’ll have a chance to get caught up before the Hares hop out.

The most adorable cover in the bunch is the one for Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop – although we’re back at murder again, aren’t we? My heart is divided on ‘pretty’ in this batch between We Speak Through the Mountain and The Doors of Midnight but that’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges, isn’t it?

For Review:
Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop (Halloween Bookshop #1) by Emmeline Duncan
The Doors of Midnight (Tales of Tremaine #2) by R.R. Virdi
Glass Houses by Madeline Ashby
Glory Be (Gloria Broussard #1) by Danielle Arceneaux (audio)
A Trace of Hares (Nell Ward #5) by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
Unexploded Remnants by Elaine Gallagher
We Speak Through the Mountain by Premee Mohamed

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
A Cast of Falcons (Nell Ward #2) by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
A Generation of Vipers (Nell Ward #4) by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
A Mischief of Rats (Nell Ward #3) by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
A Murder of Crows (Nell Ward #1) by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett

Borrowed from the Library:
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (audio)


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Stacking the Shelves (585)

So I picked up a couple more books this week than I did last week. What’s a few extra books between friends, amirite? Especially since Enlightenment absolutely ran away with the ‘pretty book cover’ award for this week’s stack!

For Review:
The City of Marble and Blood (Chronicles of Hanuvar #2) by Howard Andrew Jones
Close to Death (Hawthorne and Horowitz #5) by Anthony Horowitz
Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho
The Runes of Engagement by Dave Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier #2) by T. Kingfisher (audio)
Yoke of Stars (Birdverse) by R.B. Lemberg

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold #1) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Before We Say Goodbye (Before the Coffee Gets Cold #4) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Before Your Memory Fades (Before the Coffee Gets Cold #3) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
The Devil’s Brew (Sinners #2.5) by Rhys Ford
Tales from the Cafe (Before the Coffee Gets Cold #2) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi


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Stacking the Shelves (584)

For some reason this stack LOOKED way bigger than last week’s stack – but it’s not. Just one more title.

Also, they are nearly all pretty in their own ways, with the exception of The Atlas Complex. That whole series has had sort of bland covers, the excitement has always been BETWEEN the covers on that one. Although, I have to admit that it’s the kind of excitement engendered by watching a trainwreck or a 10-car pileup. Those characters are ALL such hot messes that I’m still in it at this point just to see how it ends. Because it’s middled in some very weird places and I honestly don’t like ANY of the characters. If they all got exactly what they deserve it would be marvelous. Also bloody, but marvelous.

In Mercy, Rain and Skeleton Song aren’t exactly ‘pretty’ per se either. Pretty fitting for the Wayward Children series, but not exactly pretty in themselves.

If I had to pick, I’d say the prettiest cover in this stack in A Letter to the Luminous Deep, but it’s really hard to pick just one.

What about  you? What pretty and/or pretty interesting books are stacked on your shelf this week?

For Review:
Daughters of Olympus by Hannah Lynn
The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan (book and audio)
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
A Letter to the Luminous Deep (Sunken Archive #1) by Sylvie Cathrall
More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop #2) by Satoshi Yagisawa
The Nightingale’s Castle by Sonia Velton
The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons
The Undermining of Twyla and Frank (Undertaking of Hart and Mercy #2) by Megan Bannen

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Atlas Complex (Atlas #3) by Olivie Blake (book and audio)
In Mercy, Rain (Wayward Children #7.5) by Seanan McGuire
Skeleton Song (Wayward Children #7.7) by Seanan McGuire


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Stacking the Shelves (583)

I finally found cover images for two books that I’ve had forever – but without the art. It feels like a bit of a milestone. Also, the covers are gorgeous. I’m speaking of Blood Jade and Fiasco both of which have fascinating covers and whose first series books were both terrific. So I have very high hopes indeed for both of them.

Two books in this stack look to be series wrap-ups, notably the final Maisie Dobbs book, The Comfort of Ghosts, Ghostdrift, which is purportedly the last book in Suzanne Palmer’s Finder Chronicles.

And I can never resist either a Sherlock Holmes pastiche OR another entry in the Penric and Desdemona series by Lois McMaster Bujold. All in all, this is kind of a ‘Goldilocks’ stack – not too big, not too small and all of the books look like they’re going to be JUST right!

For Review:
Blood Jade (Phoenix Hoard #2) by Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle
The Comfort of Ghosts (Maisie Dobbs #18) by Jacqueline Winspear
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson
Fiasco (Uncharted Hearts #2) by Constance Fay
Ghostdrift (Finder Chronicles #4) by Suzanne Palmer
The Hero She Wants (Unbroken Heroes #2) by Anna Hackett
Port in a Storm (Sinners #8) by Rhys Ford
Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell by Nicholas Meyer

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Demon Daughter (Penric and Desdemona #12) by Lois McMaster Bujold
From Sawdust to Stardust by Terry Lee Rioux


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