#BookReview: Death on the Caldera by Emily Paxman

#BookReview: Death on the Caldera by Emily PaxmanDeath on the Caldera by Emily Paxman
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: fantasy, fantasy mystery, gaslamp, witches
Pages: 448
Published by Titan Books on June 17, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

It’s Murder on the Orient Express – with witches!
A thrilling blend of fantasy and classic murder mystery, this rollicking adventure with a wide cast of suspects is ideal for those who love both Agatha Christie and V. E. Schwab, and are drawn to stories that take place in a vivid fantasy world.

The Linde siblings—Kellen, Davina, and Morel—are anxious to return to the kingdom of Halgyr before their father dies, leaving Kellen to assume the throne as king. They book tickets on a luxury express train, expecting a swift journey home—but disaster strikes when the train engine explodes, stranding the siblings atop a caldera bubbling with volcanic magic.

The crash triggers Davina’s latent witch powers, but her magic disrupts her ability to remember what she was doing when the explosion took place. While a witch would be the prime suspect for the catastrophe, the only ones who knew Davina might become one are her brothers—who never warned her. And, to add insult to injury, somebody is bumping off the surviving train crew and passengers. But it can’t be Davina, can it?

While the remaining passengers try to determine who sabotaged the engine and catch the killer, the fractured siblings attempt to stay one step ahead, concealing not only Davina’s powers but their own secrets. Luckily, they aren’t the only shifty characters on the train…

A thrilling blend of classic murder mystery and fantasy for those who love Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile every bit as much as Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses.

My Review:

The Linde siblings, Morel and Davina, come to glittering, progressive Pesca to deliver bad news to their older brother Kellen, who is on the embassy staff there on behalf of their homeland, the mysterious, secretive, kingdom of Halgyr.

And the secrets immediately start spilling out.

Kellen may appear to be just a rising young star on the Embassy staff, which he certainly is, but it’s also a ruse and a cover identity of extreme delicacy. Kellen is the heir to the throne of Halgyr, his brother Morel is the spare, and their sister Davina is a real princess chafing at the bounds of her gilded but secure cage.

The news that Morel and Davina have brought to Kellen is that their father, THE KING, is dying, and that Kellen needs to get himself home and fast. His siblings brought him the message personally because the train that made their journey is the fastest method of transit from Pesca to Halgyr through the vast, sparsely inhabited and constantly contested caldera lands that lie between.

Which puts the three siblings on the luxury express train two nights later, headed home by the quickest route, hoping that they’ll be able to see their father one last time before his end. Hoping that their secrets will hold up to the minimal scrutiny that the rich receive even when traveling between countries that are almost constantly courting armed conflict.

Of course, that’s when the situation goes completely pear-shaped in a way that is guaranteed to make readers see shades of Murder on the Orient Express. Except that it’s not a natural but annoying snowstorm that has stopped this train – and there’s no Poirot available to solve the mystery.

Make that mysteries, plural.

Because this train isn’t merely halted, it’s outright crashed. In a remote valley, cut off from all hope of rescue by a magically blown up bridge in back and a magically conjured boulder in front – fused to the engine itself.

And even as Kellen, out of a sense of duty and a desperate desire to keep himself busy – and his secrets intact – begins a very amateur investigation of the crash, the remaining survivors start dying. Not from the witchcraft that derailed the train in the first place, but by the expert application of a sharpened blade to the throat. Throats. One after another.

Someone stopped the train. Someone is cutting throats. Is it the same someone? Do they have the same motives? Will there be enough time to figure things out before the throatcutter runs out of throats?

It’s really too bad there’s no Poirot on this Express, because his expertise would have been very helpful. Even if he would have inevitably exposed too many of everyone’s secrets. Especially Kellen’s.

Escape Rating B: Death on the Caldera is an absolutely captivating gaslamp fantasy mystery. There’s also a whole lot packed into this story that isn’t necessarily all satisfactorily explained or worked through, but a good reading time is absolutely had by all – especially if you love fantasy and/or SF mystery blends. Which this reader absolutely does.

It’s hard to miss the callback to Murder on the Orient Express, and I have to admit that the resemblance carried me over a fair number of open spaces on those tracks. But the resemblances to Christie’s classic mostly serve as framework for all the other elements that are roiling through this story, so it’s not a good idea to get too caught up in the similarities.

What the story is precariously balanced over are the many, many secrets that are held by the passengers, the two countries they mostly represent, and the contested territory the train has gotten itself stuck in.

It’s relatively simple – and utterly fascinating – to follow the human elements. The political and criminal as well as the political criminals and the criminal politics and politicians, and layer upon layer that are steeped in the history of this world that we don’t know nearly enough about. (Then again, that’s always my issue, that I want to know more than any single story has got time to delve into.)

At the heart of this mystery, at least the side of it that’s the human parts, is the relationship between the Linde siblings, their collective and not all that great relationship with their parents, and the secret that both brothers have been keeping from Davina. The secret about Davina is a big part of the stew of the story.

Davina is a witch. Her mother was too. But the actual talent only manifests in women although, as it turns out, the males can pass witchcraft onto their female offspring, which absolutely IS relevant in the story.

The fear driving the Linde brothers is that their sister could be responsible for the damage to the train. The anger driving Davina’s behavior during this whole mess is that both of them knew and neither of them told her. She’s an adult, if just barely, so she really did need to know and they really should have told her. Even in her sometimes still childish tantrums Davina’s not wrong about nearly all of her resentments, only that this isn’t the time and place to act out.

There are also ginormous secrets about the royal house of Halgyr that will have worldwide catastrophic implications if they come out. Which they are in danger of doing because Kellen is a hot mess through this whole, well, mess.

That’s not all. In fact, that’s far, far, far, from all. To the point where it feels like there’s about three books worth of ramifications teasing at the edges of this one story. And I want all of them. Really, truly.

In the end, this does resolve all of its issues on the microcosm level. Davina’s secret is mostly kept. The Linde family secrets are mostly kept but there are plenty of problems left to deal with another day. The criminal issues of the one country’s Lord’s Council are mostly resolved because most of the perpetrators end up dead. The territorial claims of the witches and the ‘left behind’ internal refugees of the caldera region are mostly left up in the air – in a few cases literally because witchcraft.

Those territorial claims, and the status of the entire caldera region, are clearly left simmering. Quite possibly well above simmer, as two explosive elements of that conflict have banded together with what will likely be catastrophic results in a future story. One I’d really, really, REALLY like to read!

Dad-o-Mite Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Dad-O-Mite Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mama the Fox and Mom Does Reviews!

Father’s Day was yesterday, June 15th, in the U.S. as well as a whole host of other countries. In honor of that day, this blog hop celebrates dads of all kinds everywhere, whether bio-dads, adoptive dads, foster dads, dads of choice, pet dads and every kind of dad, granddad and father figure out there who is loved by their children, whether those children are little, or big, or have four feet or fur or feathers or scales, or any combination of the above.

We all need someone to fill that role in our lives. We’re not all lucky enough to get such a person. If you have one, and yours is still around, give them an extra hug for those who never did or no longer do.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more dad-worthy prizes, and maybe a few more dad jokes, be sure to visit the other stops on this hop!

MamatheFox, Mom Does Reviews, and all participating blogs are not held responsible for sponsors who fail to fulfill their prize obligations.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 6-15-25

Today is Father’s Day in the United States. If you are a dad, Happy Father’s Day. If there’s a dad in your life, please wish them a Happy Father’s Day for me.

Hecate, very much on the other hand, is absolutely NOT a dad – and we’re sure she’s never been one. Or, for that matter, a mom. We rescued her when she was about a month old, she’s never been outside and she was spayed as soon as it was possible. We got George when he was about six weeks old and he was neutered ASAP as well. Luna and Tuna came to us pre-spootered (spay and/or neuter = spooter) at not quite a year old. So it’s theoretically possible but we’ve heard the story of their original rescue so it’s unlikely.

However, in this picture Hecate was certainly posing for her human dad, trying to look adorable and not at all like the grumpypants demon she often is!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop (ENDS THURSDAY!)
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Graduations, Stanley Cup, Father’s Day & Early Summer Giveaway Event!

Blog Recap:

A- #AudioBookReview: Knave of Diamonds by Laurie R. King
Grade A #BookReview: Behooved by M. Stevenson
A- #AudioBookReview: The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video by Thomas Ha
B+ #BookReview: Esperance by Adam Oyebanji
A- #BookReview: Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me by Django Wexler
Stacking the Shelves (657)

Coming This Week:

Dad-o-Mite Giveaway Hop
Death on the Caldera by Emily Paxman (#BookReview)
Loneliness Universe by Eugenia Triantafyllou (#AudioBookReview #HugoReview)
Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds by Allison Brennan (#BlogTour #BookReview)
Summer 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Stacking the Shelves (657)

If I were picking a pretty cover out of this week’s stack – and I apparently am – I’d be torn between Rules for Ruin and Beneath the Burning Sea, which are both pretty but not pretty the same. For this lifelong reader, Storybook Ending isn’t exactly pretty, but it certainly feels comfortable. It’s a cover I’d be happy to fall into both literally and figuratively.

The books I’m most interested in and/or curious about are A Ghostwriter’s Guide to Murder, The Human Scale, Silvercloak and The Shakespeare Secret. The Shakespeare Secret in particular sounds fascinating. The two I would have said I was the most looking forward to reading are The Memory Hunters and Wrath of the Dragons – so I already did.

What are you most looking forward to reading that’s in YOUR stack?

For Review:
Asylum Hotel by Juliet Blackwell
Beneath the Burning Sea (Kingmaker Chronicles #5) by Amanda Bouchet
The Blackbirds of St. Giles by Lila Cain
Blood Slaves (Blood Saga #1) by Markus Redmond
The Cleaner by Mary Watson
A Ghostwriter’s Guide to Murder by Melinda Mullet
He’s to Die For by Erin Dunn
The Human Scale by Lawrence Wright
The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth by Barbara O’Neal
Marked by Moonlight (Moon Chasers #1) by Sophie Jordan
The Memory Hunters (Consecrated #1) by Mia Tsai
Not Safe for Work by Nisha J. Tuli
Ride with Me (Lights Out #2) by Simone Soltani
Rules for Ruin (Crinoline Academy #1) by Mimi Matthews
The Shakespeare Secret by D.J. Nix
Silvercloak (Silvercloak Saga #1) by L.K. Steven
Slipstream by Madge Maril
Story of My Life (Story Lake #1) by Lucy Score
Storybook Ending by Moira Macdonald
The Tenant by Freida McFadden
Wrath of the Dragons (Fear the Flames #2) by Olivia Rose Darling


If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below:


A- #BookReview: Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me by Django Wexler

A- #BookReview: Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me by Django WexlerEverybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me (Dark Lord Davi, #2) by Django Wexler
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: action adventure, epic fantasy, fantasy
Series: Dark Lord Davi #2
Pages: 377
Published by Orbit on May 27, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

Dark Lord Davi rules the kingdom, but she must now break the time loop that binds her in this hilariously bloody conclusion to the Dark Lord Davi duology.

After countless failures (let’s not dwell on it), Davi has finally saved the kingdom from evil–by becoming the Dark Lord herself. But now, the hordes of wilders are at her command, and they still want blood. Human blood. And Davi’s not sure she can commit to the total extermination of humanity.

With restless armies at her doorstep, a treasonous duke scheming for power, and the legend of an ancient magician looming over her shoulder, Davi must find a way towards peace and uncover the truth behind her time loop if she is to bring harmony to the kingdom. Also, her girlfriend is mad at her. So, there’s that too.

My Review:

I’d apologize for the earworm but sometimes misery just demands company. If I’ve got Tears for Fears singing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” stuck in my head for days and days, so does everyone – perhaps that should be ‘everybody’ – else. And it fits right in with the pop culture nostalgia that just oozes from the Dark Lord Davi’s snarkitude.

Because after more than 1,000 years of reset lives and repeated disasters, those pop culture references make up most of what she remembers from the world she was plucked out of so many centuries ago.

So many centuries that she’s lost track of just how many. Or she’s been MADE TO lose track of. After all, the presence of a ‘chosen one’ – and Davi most certainly is THAT – implies the presence of a ‘chooser’ doing that choosing. A chooser that seems to have suddenly changed all the rules now that Davi has herself chosen to veer off her chosen, appointed, destined course.

The course of attempting to save the world and failing. Over and over and over again. She recognized the trope she’s trapped in as part of the first book in the Dark Lord Davi Duology (say that three times fast, I dare you). She’s stuck in something like a videogame, expected to play the hero, failing to save the people she’s come to care about, and then resetting to the starting point every time she fails.

This time around she’s decided on an ‘asshole’ playthrough. Instead of the shining hero trying to save the so-called ‘good guys’, and failing, she’s playing this time around as the evil Dark Lord, trying to save the creatures she once considered the villains. And it’s been working surprisingly well.

Equally surprising, it changed her focus. Because the good guys weren’t all that good in the end – and it turns out that the evil creatures aren’t all that evil. They’re just trying to survive the constant encroachment of humans who absolutely cannot seem to stop displaying their inhumanity to anyone who is not themselves at every turn.

Davi’s new plan is to get the humans and the non-humans to make peace. She’s got all the tools she needs to make it work. After all, she knows all the human players and all their strategies after watching them (and herself!) get massacred over and over again due to their own inability to get it together.

But there’s someone waiting in the wings who absolutely did not choose Davi to save, well, anyone at all if it comes down to it. He’s not on board with ANY of her plans, and he keeps throwing giant, dragon-shaped monkey wrenches into her hopes for peace and mutual prosperity.

Which means that Davi is going to have to find all of his plans and throw her own monkey wrenches into those on her way to a future she might finally get to have. All she has to do is keep the humans and the non-humans from tearing out each other’s throats long enough to dispose of a god.

No pressure, amirite?

Escape Rating A-: This is still and absolutely a wild and snarkastic romp of a ride. It just has a whole lot more heart this time around because Davi has discovered hers – and given it away to people she can’t bear to lose or even start over with. Not to mention, she’s fallen in love with her sexy orc lieutenant Tsav and has finally started seeing her horde not as disposable minions but as a found family she wants to grow up and even, perhaps grow old with in a future that she’s never even dreamed of.

In other words, Davi has finally discovered real consequences to her actions. Because every time she dies and restarts, all the relationships she’s created and the memories she’s made are all gone. If the people she’s made those memories with are merely minions, it’s all good – at least for certain rather selfish definitions of ‘good’. But if most of them are the siblings from other misters she’s never had as well as the love of ALL her lives, she now has a whole lot of hostages to fortune that she wants to save – with their memories intact.

So the story this time around has a bit of a different tone. Davi is as snarky as she’s ever been, but she isn’t nearly as reckless, leading to a bit more heartburn and a hell of a lot more angst.

The course of this adventure is different as well. In How to Become the Dark Lord AND Die Trying, the story is pretty much that. Davi is Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow, dying over and over again to get a shot at getting things right.

This time around, Davi isn’t just trying to save the humans, or for that matter to save the horde. This time around, she’s trying to save EVERYONE. There are no takesies-backsies – and it changes everything. Because her attempt to change the rules has made her aware that there is a force opposing her, looking on from the outside of the playing field, changing the rules to enforce an agenda of her own.

So, on the one side, we have Davi scrambling to get all the pieces on both sides of the board into the right places to have a chance at stopping the endless massacres. On the other side there’s an agency who keeps pushing everyone towards the massacre for reasons of their own – using Davi and everyone else as their pawns.

As much as this story is about Davi brokering peace between the humans and the horde, it’s really about Davi’s quest for a life of her own, on her own, as no one’s pawn but her own, by finding and destroying whoever or whatever is pulling the levers on everyone’s lives – including HER own.

That her opponent’s motives are sucky but not completely wrong – or crazy – made for a fascinating and surprisingly somewhat serious ending to a duology that started out being all about the fun – and often funny – aspects of aspiring to be the Dark Lord. That we leave the story wondering if Davi’s solution is going to work for the long haul makes for a thought-provoking conclusion to this utterly satisfying romp.

#BookReview: Esperance by Adam Oyebanji

#BookReview: Esperance by Adam OyebanjiEsperance by Adam Oyebanji
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, science fiction, science fiction mystery
Pages: 432
Published by DAW on May 20, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

The history-bending speculative fiction from Adam Oyebanji, award-winning author of BRAKING DAY.
An impossible death: Detective Ethan Krol has been called to the scene of a baffling murder: a man and his son, who appear to have been drowned in sea-water. But the nearest ocean is a thousand miles away.
An improbable story: Hollie Rogers doesn’t want to ask too many questions of her new friend, Abi Eniola. Abi claims to be an ordinary woman from Nigeria, but her high-tech gadgets and extraordinary physical abilities suggest she’s not telling the whole truth.
An incredible quest: As Ethan’s investigation begins to point towards Abi, Hollie’s fears mount. For Abi is very much not who she seems. And it won’t be long before Ethan and Hollie find themselves playing a part in a story that spans cultures, continents… and centuries.
An extraordinary speculative thriller about the scars left by the Atlantic slave-trade, by a master of the genre.

My Review:

Lake Michigan is a freshwater lake. There are no bodies of saltwater closer than the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles away. Unless you’re counting the gigantic saltwater tank and the Shedd Aquarium, which Chicago Police Detective Ethan Krol is forced to think about in this puzzle of a case.

The double homicide that he’s been called to utterly defies explanation. But as the lead investigator, he’s going to be required to both explain it and solve it, regardless.

A man and his baby son have been murdered, at home in their luxury apartment. Along with a barracuda. The two humans died by drowning – in seawater, while presumably the barracuda died from lack of the same. The man’s wife, the mother of the little boy, was in a profound coma in a nearby room. There are no marks or wounds on either of the bodies, but the man has plaster dust under his fingernails.

It’s a mystery – and it’s only the first of many.

When Krol reaches out to his fellow cops in the U.S. and even Interpol looking for any similar cases ANYWHERE he feels like he’s ‘casting his bread upon the waters’ or perhaps leaping and hoping the net will appear. Both turn out to be apt metaphors.

In either case, he’s successful – at least in discovering that there are other cops with similar cases who have been left just as puzzled as he is. A case in Nigeria a few years ago involving the dead man’s brother. A similar case in Rhode Island the next day. Meanwhile, a black woman of Amazonian proportions arrives in Bristol, England out of absolutely nowhere, with a mission to find the descendants of the captain of one very, very old shipwreck for reasons that she keeps very much to herself even as she eludes the police on what seems like a criminal rampage.

As information trickles and then pours in, it becomes obvious that all these events are linked – but to what? Something that combines Sherlock Holmes’ aphorism that “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” with Occam Razor’s “simplest explanation is usually the best one,” (for really wild and improbable definitions of ‘simple’) and plugs the whole thing straight into Clarke’s Law that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Escape Rating B+: This is one of those ‘mystery wrapped in an enigma’ stories that’s very much a part of the rising wave of SF mystery, and it does an excellent job of being both by starting the story from both sides of that SF + mystery equation.

It’s not like murder in Chicago is a new thing – not even among, let’s call it the upper, upper middle class. Which puts the frame directly around the wife, because the odds are that if a spouse is murdered, the other spouse had something to do with it.

Krol knows how to do his job, figures out that the frame doesn’t fit, and keeps on with dogged police work. (I do love me a good, solid, police procedural, and this is certainly that even as the procedures lead Krol straight into SFnal territory.)

At first, it’s the SFnal side of the story that is more than a bit, well, ‘out there’. So to speak. When Abidemi Eniola appears out of nowhere outside Bristol, she’s clearly a fish out of water. She’s dressed like an extra from a gangster movie, and talks like one as well. All her words are in English but they are combined in ways that don’t make sense. Or don’t make sense anymore, like she learned the language somewhere very isolated or very much behind the times.

(She talks like an extra from the Star Trek: Original Series episode “A Piece of the Action”.)

Abi needs a guide to the world in which she has found herself, and finds that guide – as well as a surprisingly loyal friend, in Hollie Rogers. Hollie helps her navigate while never knowing what she is leading – and being led – towards.

As Krol follows the trail by discovering the victims after the fact, Abi follows the same trail by researching who those victims will be. Of course they meet in the middle.

Which is where the truth comes out. A truth that is a huge spoiler, but also a truth that asks some equally huge questions about justice vs. vengeance, acknowledgement vs. reparations, and especially about what is owed and who should pay it.

I found the winding, twisted paths of this story’s mystery utterly fascinating, even as the SFnal aspects recalled Rivers Solomon’s historical fantasy, The Deep. And I adored the historical research that led to the ultimately very SFnal conclusion.

Howsomever I have to admit that the bittersweet parting at the end threw me off just a bit. OTOH, its conclusion is utterly right for the story and ties a perfect bow around the friendship between Abi and Hollie. But the way it reaches that perfect conclusion doesn’t quite make logical sense – unless, as has been true for their entire relationship, there’s something that Abi isn’t telling Hollie because she’s afraid that the truth will be too hard to bear.

A- #AudioBookReview: The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video by Thomas Ha

A- #AudioBookReview: The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video by Thomas Ha“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” by Thomas Ha in Clarkesworld, Issue 212, May 2024 by Thomas Ha
Narrator: Kate Baker
Format: ebook, podcast
Source: podcast, supplied by publisher via Hugo Packet
Formats available: magazine, podcast
Genres: dystopian, science fiction, short stories
Series: Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 212 May 2024
Pages: 20
Length: 50 minutes
Published by Clarkesworld Magazine on April 29, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads

Clarkesworld is a Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction, articles, interviews and art. Our May 2024 issue (#212) fiction by Alice Towey ("Fishy"), Fiona Moore ("The Portmeirion Road"), Carolyn Zhao ("In Which Caruth is Correct"), Thomas Ha ("The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video"), Samara Auman ("The Texture of Memory, of Light"), Rajeev Prasad ("The Blinding Light of Resurrection"), Carlie St. George ("The Weight of Your Own Ashes"), and K. J. Khan ("Our Father").Non-fiction includes an article by D.A. Xiaolin Spires, interviews with Andrea Hairston and Andrea Kriz, and an editorial by Neil Clarke.

My Review:

I came into this story not quite sure what I was getting into. Probably not helped by reading the “St.” in the title as “Saint” instead of “Street”. I think the “Brotherhood” bit led me astray.

But only a bit.

The opening of this story was a bit jarring, when the unnamed narrator goes to the library and picks up what he calls a “dead book” and is so surprised about it. It’s an interesting opening for a story that winds its way around to the idea that “dead books” and any other media that is fixed in time and can’t be “fixed” in content is more alive – or has more life in it – than the reverse.

The way that it gets there is a story about what we remember vs. what really happened, about what we hang onto vs. what we keep, and the idea that stories are not meant to make us comfortable, they are meant to make us think.

But the way that it gets there is through one young man’s grief over the death of his mother, his desire to remember her and their relationship as it really was and not “enhanced” or “improved” or “optimized” to make the “story” come out better than it really happened.

The protagonist’s desire to preserve his true memories is set against his discovery of that supposedly dead book. Just as nearly all the services to preserve his mother’s collection of keepsakes and memorabilia includes optimization whether he wants that service or not, the same is true with books. That’s how he makes his living, by turning dead books into “living” ones.

Meaning that all books are electronic and updated constantly according to formulas about what is popular, comfortable and desirable. Except that dead book he found in the library. It can’t be changed, or altered, or improved. It’s dead ink on dead paper.

But the story lives in his thoughts in a way that no “living book” ever has. He’s intrigued by both the story and the concept. He’s also frightened, very nearly but not quite completely out of his wits, that there’s someone following him and interfering with his digital access to EVERYTHING in order to coerce him to give up the book.

Fortunately for the protagonist, one of the things that his mother taught him, that he needs to remember, is how to get around the ubiquitous electronic surveillance and need for electronic access in order to get himself to the one place that might just take him – and his memories and his dead but still dangerous book – in.

Escape Rating A-: I was able to listen to this as a podcast, read by Kate Baker, and it did help to put me inside the main character’s head – even if said main character wasn’t always sure where his head was at and whether or not he was seeing things. Howsomever, this is a hard story to encapsulate – see above effort – because it’s hitting a lot of different and interesting themes in a relatively short space. Also, the unnamed protagonist just makes describing the story even more awkward.

The story that this reminded me of most turned out to be “The Boy from Elsewhen” by Barlow Crassmont, part of Writers of the Future 41. Both are stories about the value of the unchanging printed word versus the endless mutability of electronic documents although they take that concept in different directions. In the Crassmont story, it starts out as a quirk that is subject to mockery, but ends with a realization that having to deal with material that isn’t homogenized for the reader stimulates intelligence and creativity. In this story, that idea is taken a step further as the villain of the piece actively works to remove the book from circulation because they are afraid of what the thoughts it engenders might lead to.

There’s also a bit of Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman as both are stories about sons trying to preserve the memories of their late parents through the preservation of the materials and artifacts they left behind.

The part of the story that was really difficult to include was the way that the whole society seems to have turned into a culture that preserves nothing and hangs onto very little. It seemed a bit like the result of the societal collapse in Down in the Sea of Angels, but we don’t know how they got there in this story so the characters who are coming from that perspective, the protagonist’s weird girlfriend Elii, feel false and weird.

At the same time, the plot elements, the story that he’s reading, the way it affects him and how much it feels to this reader as if the protagonist of the story is an avatar for the protagonist of the story he’s reading or vice versa, felt, well, real. We do see ourselves in stories, whether our actual selves or a person we might have been or might want to be. The equivocal, uncertain ending of the story within the story is exactly the kind of ending that opens the mind and makes the reader think because it IS disturbing and sometimes we need that even if we don’t want it.

While the mysterious figure chasing after the main character, the clearly dangerous but not-quite-exactly-human Caliper John, adds tension and a chilling sense of danger that moves the story forward even as it further enmeshes the story on the surface with the story inside it.

I have one more novelette to go in this year’s Hugo reading, unless I decide to reread Lake of Souls because it’s been a while. In any case, I’ll be back in a week or two with the next installment!

Grade A #BookReview: Behooved by M. Stevenson

Grade A #BookReview: Behooved by M. StevensonBehooved by M. Stevenson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, fantasy romance, romantasy
Pages: 352
Published by Bramble Romance on May 20, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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A charming slow-burn romantasy featuring a duty-bound noblewoman with a chronic illness, a prince who would rather be in a library than on a throne, and a magical ride through a world of cozy enchantment
*This beautiful paperback edition features sprayed edges.*
Bianca knows her duty comes before her heart. So when the threat of war looms, she agrees to marry the neighboring kingdom’s heir. But not all royal weddings are a fairytale, and Prince Aric, Bianca’s betrothed, is cold, aloof, and seems to hate her on sight.
To make matters worse, on their wedding night, an assassination attempt goes awry―leaving Aric magically transformed into a horse. Bianca does what any bride in this situation would do: she mounts her new husband and rides away to safety.
Sunset returns Aric to human form, but they soon discover the assassination attempt is part of a larger plot against the throne. Worse, Bianca has been framed for Aric’s murder, and she’s now saddled with a husband who is a horse by day and a frustratingly attractive man by night.
As an unexpected romance begins galloping away with their hearts, Bianca and Aric must rely on each other to unravel the curse and save the throne.

My Review:

Bianca Liliana of Damaria has been groomed by her parents to be a slave to her duty. Afflicted with a chronic, intermittently debilitating illness that not even the best healers can identify, Bianca has spent most of her life being told that she’s utterly useless for any role at all, and that the best she can hope for is to be married off, far away from home, before anyone discovers just how weak she is.

When the neighboring country of Gildenheim presents her parents with a treaty designed as an ultimatum, they are more than willing to sacrifice Bianca on the altar of keeping the peace. Bianca is willing to do her duty – after all, she’s been taught all her life that it’s all she’s good for, while her strong, capable, magical sister is MUCH more suited to being their parents’ heir to their family’s position on their country’s ruling council.

Bianca is packed off to Gildenheim in unseemly haste to do her duty to her country, fearing for her life at the hands of a warmongering young king who seems to have ascended to his throne rather suddenly after the recent and extremely suspicious death of his mother the queen.

It’s only AFTER the wedding, when they finally manage to have a private – and surprisingly civil – conversation that Bianca and Aric figure out that BOTH their countries are being manipulated by a villain hiding in the shadows.

Well, they’re half right.

Just at the point where they both start thinking they might have a handle on the mess, an assassin breaks into the as yet unused marital chamber to kill Aric. You’d think that a king would be able to defend himself but that’s not how things work. It’s up to Bianca to defend Aric, surprising everyone in the room including the assassin.

She’s surprised at herself for immediately leaping to his defense – once she figures out that he has none of his own. He’s surprised she could and the assassin is surprised she did. Then they’re all surprised when Bianca turns Aric into a big white horse and chaos ensues all around.

Bianca is not, definitely not, absolutely not, a mage of any sort or stripe. But her sister Tatiana is, so when Bianca, in a last-ditch effort to save her brand-spanking-new husband from an assassin, uses the experimental charm her sister gave her to save them both – a horse is the result.

Or rather, Aric AS a horse. In the confusion, the assassin’s confusion, their own confusion, the rapidly arriving guards’ confusion, Aric and Bianca escape together by leaping out the window and galloping down the road. Away. Out of the line of whatever fire might still be coming for them.

Which is the point where Behooved literally runs off to the races as Bianca and Aric start comparing notes about their current predicament as they do their best – and occasionally worst to both figure out and stay out of the way of the forces that are arrayed behind them, before them, and against them.

Even as they discover the advantages, as well as the disadvantages of traveling together as a horse and rider by day – and as a man and a woman during nights that just don’t seem to last nearly long enough.

Escape Rating A: I began this story with a whole heaping helping of mixed feelings, but by the end I was completely wowed by the way this slow-burn, sort-of-enemies to definitely lovers romantasy, filled to the brim with political skullduggery and truly epic betrayals redeemed itself from its predictable opening to the multiple, multiple heel turns of its fantastic ending.

Okay, that was a lot, wasn’t it?

The beginning was more than just a bit predictable. It was completely obvious that Bianca’s parents had been grooming her in an emotionally abusive fashion pretty much her whole entire life, and that they were absolutely clear about exactly how to push her ‘duty’ button because they had installed the damn thing themselves. They were evil and manipulative from the off, and the reader sees it clearly even though Bianca is willfully blind to their machinations because, honestly, they’ve programmed her that way.

So we know Bianca is walking straight into some kind of trap – it’s just a matter of waiting for the trap to spring so that we can finally get to the REAL story of Bianca’s romance and adventures and romantic adventures.

Because we’re seeing this story entirely from Bianca’s perspective we don’t see that Aric has been manipulated just as much – albeit from entirely different angles – as she has until they have the chance to start comparing notes. And even then they don’t trust each other because they’ve both been manipulated not to.

What made them such a fascinating couple was the way that they had each, in entirely different ways, been groomed to believe that they were useless and less than by the people who were supposed to raise them with love and care. In other words, his mother-the-queen and her conniving parents.

They’ve both been programmed to believe that they are not worthy and less than for things that are innate parts of themselves. Bianca for her chronic illness, and Aric for his shy, gentle, bookish nature. They work well together because they have both grown strong in the broken places that their own families have instilled within them.

(One of the readalikes for this is Wooing the Witch Queen, not that Bianca is a witch after all, but rather for the way that Aric’s and Fabian’s gentle, studious nerdiness worms its way into their much stronger partners’ hearts.)

The fun part of this story is the whole scenario – terrible jokes, salacious puns and all – about Bianca spending her days riding her husband the horse. (Pause here for groans and giggles).

If you’ve ever seen or even heard of the classic fantasy romance movie Ladyhawke, the scenario is instantly recognizable. In the movie, by day, she was a hawk. By night, he was a wolf. They do not get to be together as humans until the end, so not quite the same, but it’s hard to deny the similarity.

At least for Bianca and Aric, they’re only different species by day. They get to spend their nights together as humans, figuring out who they are and can be to each other once they get out of the mess they are currently in. Each believing they’re not worthy of the other, but doing their damndest to let the person they’ve fallen in love with go free.

Behooved combines a marvelously romantic romance (yes, I know I repeat myself), with a desperate, high-stakes adventure that earns its happy ending for not just the protagonists, but for their countries as well.

What really kicked it over the top for this reader was the way that, in the end, it rang clearly with the same vibe I received from Never Too Old to Save the World, that every single one of us, whether male or female, old or young, able-bodied or otherwise, should be able to experience the thrill of someone just like us being the hero of a fantastic adventure – and as often as possible at that.

A- #AudioBookReview: Knave of Diamonds by Laurie R. King

A- #AudioBookReview: Knave of Diamonds by Laurie R. KingKnave of Diamonds (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #19) by Laurie R. King
Narrator: Amy Scanlon, Steven Crossley, Jefferson Mays
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via Libro.fm
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #19
Pages: 336
Length: 9 hours and 39 minutes
Published by Bantam, Recorded Books on June 10, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

Mary Russell’s allegiances are tested by the reappearance of her long-lost uncle—and a tantalizing case not even Sherlock Holmes could solve.

When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black sheep Uncle Jake. But she hasn’t heard from him in many years, and she assumed that his ne’er-do-well ways had brought him to a bad end somewhere—until he presents himself at her Sussex door. Yes, Jake is back, and with a load of problems for his clever niece. Not the least of which is the reason the family rejected him in the first place: He was involved—somehow—in the infamous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels from an impregnable safe in Dublin Castle.

It was a theft that shook a government, enraged a king, threatened the English establishment—and baffled not only the Dublin police and Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes himself. And, now, Jake expects Russell to step into the middle of it all? To slip away with him, not telling Holmes what she’s up to? Knowing that the theft—unsolved, hushed-up, scandalous—must have involved Mycroft Holmes as well?

Naturally, she can do nothing of the sort. Siding with her uncle, even briefly, could only place her in opposition to both her husband-partner and his secretive and powerful brother. She has to tell Jake no.

On the other hand, this is Jake—her father’s kid brother, her childhood hero, the beloved and long-lost survivor of a much-diminished family.

Conflicting loyalties and international secrets, blatant lies and blithe deceptions: sounds like another case for Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.

My Review:

“There’s nothing more disarming than a Jack Russell terrier,” according to Mary Russell’s long-absent rogue of an uncle, Jake Russell. Jake was so much the epitome of the black sheep of the family that he managed to fade completely into the shadows for fourteen long, and often dark, years. But now he’s arrived on his niece’s doorstep in Sussex, hoping that he can work his ‘disarming’ charm on her, just as he used to.

Jake starts out this adventure by trying to stack the deck in his favor – as he usually does. In this particular instance, that means timing his approach to his niece AFTER he’s certain that her much too observant husband, Sherlock Holmes, is on his way elsewhere.

But the Mary Russell that Jake remembers was only eleven, albeit clever and mischievous enough to let herself be part of one of his dodgy but well-intended cons. After the death of her parents and younger brother – an event that did not bring her beloved uncle around to rescue her – and after ten years as the apprentice and later wife of the ‘Great Detective’ himself, Sherlock Holmes, Mary Russell is not nearly so innocent or gullible as she once was.

Which doesn’t mean that she won’t, eventually, go along with the scheme that brought him to her door. Only that he’ll have to be a bit more, well, honest about his intentions. She may still love him, but she’s also VERY well aware of who and what he is, and she doesn’t trust him very far at all.

And she shouldn’t. Because, as always, Jake Russell is no better than he ought to be, and up to all of his old tricks. In fact, he needs Mary to help him finish one of his own actual old tricks, to help him steal back something he stole long ago, and get a bit of his own back against the man who betrayed his trust – and perhaps even his heart.

All she has to do is help him trace the untraceable, find the unfindable, and close an old cold case that defied not just the Crown’s attempt at solving it, but even the efforts of the Great Detective himself.

Escape Rating A-: I picked this up because I love this series. I’ve loved it from the very first book, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, THIRTY YEARS ago, and I’m not likely to change my mind. The next Russell book is always on my Most Anticipated List, and whatever its title turns out to be, it will be as soon as it’s announced as well.

Because this entry in the series was lovely, made even lovelier this time around because I started it in audio. The voices were excellent, Amy Scanlon as Mary Russell, Stephen Crossley as Holmes, and Jefferson Mays as Mary’s uncle Jake Russell. Scanlon and Crossley have both voiced their parts in earlier entries in the series, but Mays was a new voice and was as perfectly cast as they were.

I certainly enjoyed their performances, and it worked well to have three voices as the characters narrate their own chapters, but I also had a driving need, as always with Russell’s adventures, to find out what happened next.

So I switched to text and finished in just a couple of well-spent hours.

The previous book in this series, The Lantern’s Dance, was a bit different from the usual run of the series in that it dived a bit deeper in the Holmes’ family history than is usual – because his own history is not a place that Sherlock Holmes himself ever seriously desires to go. It was also not a good jumping in place for the series, but was an excellent story for those who have followed the series from the beginning.

This latest book is also different from their usual adventures, but in a different and equally unusual way. Because it involves a real, historical unsolved case that was cold in Russell’s time and at our own point in time is almost 120 years frozen. And STILL unsolved.

The ‘Irish Crown Jewels’ as modelled by Charles Vane-Temple-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry, when he was lord lieutenant of Ireland

(It reminds me a bit of the 1990 theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in that the crime was never solved and the stolen loot has not surfaced to this date.)

That’s precisely what happened in the theft of the so-called Irish Crown Jewels (technically the Jewels of the Order of St. Patrick) stolen from Dublin Castle in 1907. The case was never officially solved, and the jewels have not turned up – at least not yet.

Sherlock Holmes, unfortunately, was not involved in this case as it historically occurred, but the Scotland Yard investigation by Detective Chief Inspector John Kane DID occur, as did the subsequent complete and utter suppression of his report. While there was no ‘Jake Russell’ involved in the theft, the rest of the details Jake describes to Mary are pretty close to the known facts.

So, the story told in Knave of Diamonds is, in its way, a bit like the story in Emma Donoghue’s The Paris Express or Anatomy of Evil by Will Thomas, in that the story is a fictionalization of a real, documented, historical event with added fictional characters, motivations and solutions to give the reader more insight into the event as well as tell a cracking good story.

The thing about this particular fictionalization and retelling that made this an A- instead of an A or even an A+ (I do love this series and it often hits a sweet spot between comfort read and right book, right time that sends it right to the top for me) is that a lot of the recap of the historical events is told by Jake Russell as he’s trying to, let’s call it charm, his niece into helping him out.

A good bit of Jake’s charm is his line in obfuscatory patter. He’s not exactly trying to deceive Mary, but he IS trying VERY hard to hide certain details from her well-trained and extremely observant eyes, ears, and especially mind. Because he can’t dazzle her with his brilliance – she STILL knows him too well – he’s trying very hard to baffle her with his bullshit. Of which there’s rather a lot.

To the point where Mary has to frequently wrangle him back to the point. It’s an infodump, and it’s a big one. Admittedly done as well as an infodump can be done, and probably the best option for introducing this mess of a case (the story is fascinating, but the theft, the case and the handling thereof were all utter fiascos, every single one.)

After that infodump is out of the way, the story is an absolute hoot – made even better once Holmes enters the picture. Which of course he does, not just because he’s following Mary, not even just because he doesn’t trust Jake Russell, but because Brother Mycroft wants Sherlock to finally SOLVE the original theft. And for once, Sherlock is having NONE of his brother’s machinations. The Crown had his report back in 1907, didn’t want to hear a single thing he had to say, and Sherlock is not interested in solving their problem now.

At least not on behalf of his brother OR the Crown.  After all, no one died, no one was falsely accused, and the mere theft of some shiny baubles is not enough to endanger the empire. His sense of justice is not engaged, and he just doesn’t care what happened to some bits of jewelry no matter how costly. Which doesn’t mean he wouldn’t like to know the answer. For himself. For Mary. And even, just a bit, for that irrepressible rogue, Jake Russell.

That the case was never OFFICIALLY solved does not in any way prevent this decidedly UNOFFICIAL solution from being a marvelously good story. Which it absolutely is.

Knave of Diamonds, at least in audio, concludes with a delightful little short story that shows us a bit of Jake Russell as a young but already clever and devious con man, up to the tricks that will test his wits and keep him on the run for the rest of his life. In text, the author’s notes at the end let the reader know that she’s intending for her next book to be outside the Russell and Holmes series, in fact she’s planning on a followup to the fascinating nonseries book Back to the Garden. Or at least that book wasn’t part of a series at the time. It will be, however, and I’m certainly looking forward to reading it – hopefully this time next year.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 6-8-25

This was an excellent reading week. Almost all in the A’s of one stripe or another, and the one that wasn’t (Wooing the Witch Queen) just barely missed. And I have a lot of friends who ADORED it so I think the reason it missed for me was a me kind of thing and reading mileage definitely varies, mostly upward. Howsomever, as good as they all were, nothing quite tipped over the invisible line between a ‘mere’ A and an A+. IMHO Of Monsters and Mainframes got the closest to that line because it was just so bonkers.

And in other news, we got new blankets last weekend. Which isn’t, in the grand scheme of things, all that big of a deal. But the reason we NEEDED new blankets is that the cats had ‘tenderized’ the old ones to actual death. The chunky knit blanket had been so kneaded that the poor thing was attempting to reproduce by budding, and blankets just can’t do that. But the cats were encouraging the process EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

We were a bit worried they wouldn’t like the new ones because they’re not as ‘cushy’. The above picture of Luna tells us that our fears were groundless – at least on that score. OTOH they’ve already started pulling threads. Doesn’t she look pleased with herself?

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Graduations, Stanley Cup, Father’s Day & Early Summer Giveaway Event!

Blog Recap:

Grade A #BookReview: Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
A- #BookReview: It Takes a Psychic by Jayne Castle + #Excerpt
Grade A #BookReview: The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea by Naomi Kritzer
Grade A #AudioBookReview: The Devils by Joe Abercrombie
B+ #AudioBookReview: Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis
Stacking the Shelves (656)

Coming This Week:

Knave of Diamonds by Laurie R. King (#AudioBookReview)
Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me by Django Wexler (#BookReview)
The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video by Thomas Ha (#AudioBookReview #HugoReview)
Esperance by Adam Oyebanji (#BookReview)
Behooved by M. Stevenson (#BookReview)