The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 7-21-19

Sunday Post

This has been one of those weeks where I’m really feeling the “so many books, so little time” thing. And I’m starting to panic about our trip to Worldcon. Thanks to Amy, I have enough posts to fill in the time I’ll be gone, because I know I won’t get a lot of time to either read or write while we’re there – nor should I. That’s kind of not the point, after all. But I do have two assignments to write about the con after we get back.

Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof, or at least that’s what I keep telling myself!

Current Giveaways:

When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal
$10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 Book in the Christmas in July Giveaway Hop
$10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 Book in the All That Glitters is Gold Giveaway Hop

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the Star Spangled Giveaway Hop is Carolyn D.

Blog Recap:

Christmas in July Giveaway Hop
All That Glitters is Gold Giveaway Hop
B+ Review: When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal + Giveaway
A+ Review: Sweep of the Blade by Ilona Andrews
B Review: The Eagle Has Landed edited by Neil Clarke
Stacking the Shelves (349)

Coming This Week:

The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory (review)
Becoming Superman by J. Michael Straczynski (blog tour review)
Sentinel by Anna Hackett (review)
A Conspiracy of Wolves by Candace Robb (review)
Brazen and the Beast by Sarah MacLean (blog tour review)

Stacking the Shelves (349)

Stacking the Shelves

I have a completely mixed bag this week. With some really pretty covers. But there’s one book in here that I’ve been waiting for all year, and that’s Spaceside by Michael Mammay. I loved his first book, Planetside, to the point where it not only appeared on my best of the year list but it was also on the Library Journal Best of the Year list for 2018. I can’t wait to read it, but I’m the midst of the “so many books, so little time” conundrum. Maybe on the plane to WorldCon next month. I’ll have plenty of time, and it’s oh-so-relevant to the trip!

For Review:
The Bitterroots (Cassie Dewell #4) by D.J. Box
The Cold Way Home (Bell Elkins #8) by Julia Keller
A Jewel Bright Sea (Mage and Empire #1) by Claire O’Dell
Kill Monster by Sean Doolittle
The Last Good Guy (Roland Ford #3) by T. Jefferson Parker
Say It Again (First Wives #5) by Catherine Bybee
Sentinel (House of Rone #1) by Anna Hackett
Spaceside (Planetside #2) by Michael Mammay
Tidelands (Fairmile #1) by Philippa Gregory
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
The Truth Behind the Lie by Sara Lövestam
Unbreak Me by Michelle Hazen
Violet by Scott Thomas
Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati

Purchased from Amazon/Audible:
Fallen Empire Omnibus by Lindsay Buroker (audio)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter


Review: The Eagle Has Landed edited by Neil Clarke

Review: The Eagle Has Landed edited by Neil ClarkeThe Eagle Has Landed: 50 Years of Lunar Science Fiction by Neil Clarke
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: anthologies, science fiction, short stories, space opera
Pages: 600
Published by Night Shade on July 16, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads


The lone survivor of a lunar crash, waiting for rescue in a solar powered suit, must keep walking for thirty days to remain in the sunlight keeping her alive . . . life as an ice miner turns ugly as the workers’ resentment turns from sabotage to murder . . . an astronaut investigating a strange crash landing encounters an increasing number of doppelgangers of herself . . . a nuclear bomb with a human personality announces to a moon colony that it will soon explode . . . hundreds of years in the future, art forgers working on the lunar surface travel back in time to swap out priceless art, rescuing it from what will become a destroyed Earth . . .  

On July 20, 1969, mankind made what had only years earlier seemed like an impossible leap forward: Apollo 11 became the first manned mission to land on the moon, and Neil Armstrong the first person to step foot on the lunar surface. While there have only been a handful of new missions since, the fascination with our planet’s satellite continues, and generations of writers and artists have imagined the endless possibilities of lunar life.

The Eagle Has Landed collects the best stories written in the fifty years since mankind first stepped foot on the lunar surface, serving as a shining reminder that the moon is a visible and constant example of all the infinite possibility of the wider universe.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Bagatelle by John Varley The Eve of the Last Apollo by Carter Scholz The Lunatics by Kim Stanley Robinson Griffin’s Egg by Michael Swanwick A Walk in the Sun by Geoffrey A. Landis Waging Good by Robert Reed How We Lost the Moon by Paul McAuley People Came From Earth by Stephen Baxter Ashes and Tombstones by Brian Stableford Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl’s by Adam Troy Castro Stories for Men by John Kessel The Clear Blue Seas of Luna by Gregory Benford You Will Go to the Moon by William Preston SeniorSource by Kristine Kathryn Rusch The Economy of Vacuum by Sarah Thomas The Cassandra Project by Jack McDevitt Fly Me to the Moon by Marianne J. Dyson Tyche and the Ants by Hannu Rajaniemi The Moon Belongs to Everyone by Michael Alexander and K.C. Ball The Fifth Dragon by Ian McDonald Let Baser Things Devise by Berrien C. Henderson The Moon is Not a Battlefield by Indrapramit Das Every Hour of Light and Dark by Nancy Kress In Event of Moon Disaster by Rich Larson

My Review:

Just in time for the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 comes The Eagle Has Landed, a collection of stories, set on the Moon, that were written sometime AFTER that historic voyage.

One of the interesting things, at least from the editor’s perspective, is how relatively few lunar-set stories there actually were, particularly in the immediate post-Apollo years. His speculation is that changing the first lunar landing from fiction to history moved lunar-set stories too close to a potential and seemingly reachable very-near-future pushed the concept out of science fiction.

And while we know from the perspective of hindsight that Apollo 11’s achievement marked the beginning of the end rather than the end of the beginning that we hoped for, no one knew it at the time. Possibly were afraid of that possibility, but didn’t know for certain. And hoped their fears were wrong.

Another possibility thrown out was that Heinlein’s classic, and at the time relatively recent The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966), had, at least temporarily, taken all the air out of the fictional lunar room and no one wanted to jump in after the master. Even though Heinlein’s attitudes about women seem antediluvian 50 years later, I reread the thing not long ago and a surprising amount of it still holds up. And the ending still makes me tear up.

But the thing that struck me about this collection, particularly in contrast with some of Heinlein’s pre-Apollo lunar stories, not just Moon but also Gentlemen, Be Seated and even in a peculiar way The Man Who Sold the Moon, is just how dark the post-Apollo stories are in comparison to the pre-Apollo stories.

There was a lot of hope in those earlier stories. Not remotely scientifically based as we know now, but a buoyancy of spirit. We were going to get “out there” and it was going to be at least as good, if not better, than the present. Even if it took a revolution to get there.

Escape Rating B: The first several stories in this collection are seriously bleak. Either the moon is a wasteland, the Earth is, or both. Those dark futures probably mirror the state of the world at the time. Having lived through the 1970s, they seemed more hopeful in a lot of ways, but there were plenty of clouds were looming on the horizon – and some of those clouds were filled with acid rain.

And as far as the space program was concerned, all the air had been let out of its tires after the lunar landing. The uphill drive to reach the moon had been exhilarating, but the downhill slide was pretty grim.

A couple of the stories really got to me in their bleakness, A Walk in the Sun by Geoffrey A. Landis and Waging Good by Robert Reed.

One of the other notable things about this collection is that, until Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s fascinating story, SeniorSource (2008), all of the stories were written by men. And that reflects the genre at the time. Female science fiction writers were thin on the ground until this century, as were writers of color – who are also singularly absent in the collection until that point.

I loved SeniorSource because it reminded me so much of the author’s Retrieval Artist series, which is also set on the moon (and which I now have a yen to reread). SeniorSource is a combination of SF with mystery, as is the Retrieval Artist series as a whole. But what I enjoyed about it in comparison with the earlier stories is that it’s a life goes on story. It’s set in a future that seems both plausible but not catastrophic. Life goes on, humans do human, and there is a future that is not bleak, but different.

From there the collection does look up. It’s an excellent sampling of post-Apollo lunar fiction, and a view of just how much the genre has changed over time. That being said, if you’re already blue, there’s a bit too much to depress you further in this book. But definitely an interesting read, and well worth savoring – possibly in bits to lighten the darkness a bit.

Review: Sweep of the Blade by Ilona Andrews

Review: Sweep of the Blade by Ilona AndrewsSweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles, #4) by Ilona Andrews
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: science fiction, space opera, urban fantasy, vampires
Series: Innkeeper Chronicles #4
Pages: 314
Published by NYLA on July 16, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads

Maud Demille is a daughter of Innkeepers—a special group who provide ‘lodging’ to other-planetary visitors—so she knows that a simple life isn't in the cards. But even Maud could never have anticipated what Fate would throw at her.

Once a wife to a powerful vampire knight, Maud and her young daughter, Helen, were exiled with him for his treachery to the desolate, savage planet of Karhari. Karhari killed her husband, and Maud—completely abandoned by his family—has spent over a year avenging his debts. Rescued by her sister Dina, she's sworn off all things vampire.

Except... In helping Dina save the world, she met Arland, the Marshal of House Krahr, one of the most powerful vampire houses. One thing led to another and he asked for her hand in marriage. She declined. Arland is not used to hearing the word ‘no;’ and try as she might, Maud can't just walk away from Arland. It doesn't help that being human is a lot harder for Maud than being a vampire.

To sort it all out, she accepts his invitation to visit his home planet. House Krahr is extremely influential and Maud knows that a woman—a human, with a very questionable past—who's turned down a proposal from its most beloved son won't get a warm reception. Maybe she’s not sure about marrying Arland, but House Krahr isn’t going to decide for her. Maud Demille has never run from a fight, and House Krahr will soon discover that there's a lot more to Maud than they’re expecting.

My Review:

Vampires and politics. They go together like love and marriage. Complete with ALL the possibly messy endings. Along with the occasional happy ever after – as well as the rare but not unheard of “red wedding”.

This is also a book that manages to be both considerably different from the previous books in the Innkeeper Chronicles and follow directly from its immediate predecessor, the marvelous One Fell Sweep.

In this version of the universe, there is interstellar travel, and there are plenty of places and peoples in the very big galaxy, not all of whom are even humanoid. But Earth is not a participant in any of what’s “out there”. Because Earth sits on a very large and very rare nexus of space travel conduits, it has been declared a kind of intergalactic Switzerland – albeit one kept a bit in the space-faring dark ages.

Earth is off-limits to every species out there, and it’s an off-limit that’s enforced by everyone in return for safe passage through that nexus. Earth’s knowledge of the wider galaxy is confined to a group of people called innkeepers, who have complete control over the grounds of their inns. Inns that provide safe harbor, safe haven and safe rest-and-recuperation for any beings traveling through the nexus.

The story of the first three books has revolved around Dina Demille, daughter of two lost innkeepers, returning to Earth and taking control of the inn her parents left behind – and defending it from all comers, of which there have been entirely too many.

Dina’s adventures have been the heart of the first three books, and they are awesome. This is also a broad hint to start with the first book, Clean Sweep. This worldbuilding in this series is fascinating and grows with each new book in the series.

Sweep of the Blade is the story of Dina’s sister Maud. Formerly Lady Maud. Exiled and disowned ex-wife of one of the lesser ruling Vampiric Houses. There are vampire knights in this universe, but they are not much like our versions of vampires. On the other hand, the werewolves seem to be pretty much on the legendary nose.

I digress.

Maud survived a prison planet that spit her lying, deceitful, cheating husband out in little tiny pieces. And she, in her turn, avenged his death on every single one of his killers. Now she’s out, and safe, and home with her sister Dina.

But safe is not what Maud is built for. She could make a home with her sister, or become an innkeeper on her own. She could also, and more likely, become an enforcer for the innkeeper’s guild. Because Maud is a fighter – and she’s good at it.

However, Maud has a daughter, Helen, who is five years old and half-vampire by genetics, but all vampire in spirit. Earth, and the Innkeeper network, may be safe for Helen, but not what’s best for her. She’ll always be isolated and alone.

Maud’s other option is a tall, handsome hunk of vampire Marshall, who loves her, wants to marry her, and can provide Helen with a place where she can be who she is. Maud just has to accept.

But she can’t. She spent years as one vampire house’s trained human monkey, only to be discarded like trash for a crime her husband committed that she had no part of. She’s not willing to be anyone’s second class citizen ever again.

Arland offers her a place where she can fight to be first, for herself and for her daughter. She just has to survive every single thing, and every person, that his House can throw at her. Including a murderous attack by her potential mother-in-law and a pirate coup led by his House’s enemies.

And a very red wedding.

Escape Rating A+: This was a book that I gobbled up over dinner, and didn’t let go of until it was done. It starts with a bang, ends with a mic drop, and in the middle there’s the biggest and most delicious story of political skullduggery, underhanded betrayals, complex negotiations and epic romance.

This series is awesome from beginning to end, but this entry is a bit different. The previous stories have been set on Earth, with the ever expanding galaxy of characters making their way to Dina’s inn. While there have been some epic battles, the fighting has all been defensive, protecting Dina’s inn and her varied guests.

Maud goes away from Earth and she goes on the offensive – even if that is sometimes in the sense of the best defense being a good offense. She has a goal, and for the most part it’s the same goal she’s always had – to protect her daughter at all costs.

She wants what’s best for Helen, and that means making a place for them among Arland’s ancient, respected and feared House. He is, in effect, a prince among his people, and if Maud is to stand at his side as his equal, she’ll have to earn that place. That’s the story here, of her earning that place – not by pretending to be a trained monkey, as she did in her first marriage – but by being her fighting self. And by letting Helen fight an appropriate number of her own battles.

It’s that fight that makes the story so much fun. There are maneuvers, there are counter-measures. There are wheels within wheels within wheels. The vampires respect strength, so that’s what Maud must project at all times – no matter how much she hurts or how wounded she is.

At the same time, she is underestimated at every turn, and has to walk a fine line between lowering her enemies’ guards and not letting them walk all over her. The way that she eventually earns her place is by combining her strengths, both as a warrior and as a human. And it’s glorious. And so is she.

I enjoyed this book so much because I really liked Maud and wanted her to succeed. She is both kickass and clever, and both of those characteristics were needed in order for her to defeat her enemies – as well as to earn her place in Arland’s House by defeating theirs!

Sweep of the Blade ends, thank goodness not with a cliffhanger, but with a truly thunderous mic drop that promises more story in this universe. I can’t wait.

Review: When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal + Giveaway

Review: When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal + GiveawayWhen We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O'Neal
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: women's fiction
Pages: 352
Published by Lake Union Publishing on July 16, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleBookshop.org
Goodreads

From the author of The Art of Inheriting Secrets comes an emotional new tale of two sisters, an ocean of lies, and a search for the truth.

Her sister has been dead for fifteen years when she sees her on the TV news…

Josie Bianci was killed years ago on a train during a terrorist attack. Gone forever. It’s what her sister, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, has always believed. Yet all it takes is a few heart-wrenching seconds to upend Kit’s world. Live coverage of a club fire in Auckland has captured the image of a woman stumbling through the smoke and debris. Her resemblance to Josie is unbelievable. And unmistakable. With it comes a flood of emotions—grief, loss, and anger—that Kit finally has a chance to put to rest: by finding the sister who’s been living a lie.

After arriving in New Zealand, Kit begins her journey with the memories of the past: of days spent on the beach with Josie. Of a lost teenage boy who’d become part of their family. And of a trauma that has haunted Kit and Josie their entire lives.

Now, if two sisters are to reunite, it can only be by unearthing long-buried secrets and facing a devastating truth that has kept them apart far too long. To regain their relationship, they may have to lose everything.

My Review:

This is the story about the deconstruction of a life. Not in the sense that things fall apart, because the lives of both Kit and Josie Bianchi fell apart a long, long time ago. The echoes of what happened in their childhood have rippled like aftershocks through everything that has happened since.

Including, but definitely not limited to, Josie’s death – and the faking thereof.

When We Believed in Mermaids is rather about the examination, in memory, of those long ago events. What begins as a look back at a seemingly perfect childhood that was ripped apart by the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 reveals cracks in that perfection – just as the girls’ examination of their cliffside house revealed cracks that made the house’s fall inevitable.

There were plenty of warning signs that a disaster was coming – but the adults were too wrapped up in themselves, and much too damaged themselves, to see it. And the girls were children. It’s only as adults that they are able to look back and see that what went wrong was hardly their fault.

But now they are both adults. And both still scarred. Both, in their own ways, isolated because of it. Kit, whose life has come to be confined to her ER practice, her surfing, and her cat. While Josie, who seemingly has it all, is isolated by her secrets. No one knows her true self. Her past is another country, on another continent, and it happened to someone else.

One brief moment in the background in someone else’s camera frame brings Josie’s worlds into collision. And Kit’s walls come tumbling down.

Escape Rating B+: This is a story that can best be described as quietly charming. It feels like one of those stories where not a lot happens on the surface, but that surface is only 10% of what’s happening. Underneath, Kit and Josie are paddling like crazy.

While the comparison is to an iceberg, there’s nothing cold about the story – including its two settings, the California coast and Auckland, New Zealand. Where it’s a hot and steamy late summer when Kit arrives to investigate that three-second sighting of the sister who has been presumed dead for 15 years.

We begin the story from Kit’s point of view as she believes, disbelieves, questions and investigates a possibility that has haunted her for all of her adult life. What if Josie is still alive?

In alternating chapters we find ourselves looking through the eyes of a woman named Mari. Who seemingly has it all, a rich and handsome husband, two terrific kids, a storied house to investigate – and a gigantic secret.

As both Kit and Mari remember their childhoods, with each dive into the past revealing more cracks in that originally perfect surface, their memories converge. It’s obvious fairly quickly that Mari is Josie, and that she’s rightfully worried that her few seconds in that background shot are going to bring her world crashing down – and she’s right.

But until the crash, it’s Kit’s view that holds the attention. While Mari has found the life she dreamed of, and is afraid of losing it – Kit is very much still seeking, not just Josie, but a life that will not merely sustain her but support her and enrich her spirit. Her search, including her hesitant relationship with the handsome Spanish guitarist Jose Velez, opens her heart and shakes her certainties – even as she hunts down the sister she never expected to find.

Kit’s on a quest, and somewhat ironically, Josie is the macguffin she’s looking for. But all the while, both of them are internally exploring their memories of the life they once shared together. As those memories reach toward the present, Josie and Kit reach towards each other.

And the possibility of a shared – and much brighter – future.

I picked up When We Believed in Mermaids because I enjoyed The Art of Inheriting Secrets by this same author very much, with just a few quibbles. The same is true about When We Believed in Mermaids, including the quibbles. Both are stories where events in the present cause the narrator(s) to search through their own pasts as well as the past of a place that they become involved with in the course of the story, so if you like one you’ll definitely like the other.

In The Art of Inheriting Secrets, I had a couple of issues with the way that the hesitant romance in that book proceeded, but loved the look back into the past of the house she inherits and the mother she discovers that she never really knew. There’s also an old house in Mermaids, and I was hoping for as interesting a reveal of its history as there was in Secrets, but alas, it was not to be. The secrets about Sapphire House, when finally revealed, felt anticlimactic. That was the one part of the story where I really expected more.

Then again, I love stories about research done well and filled with fascinating reveals. And there were plenty of those fascinating reveals in Kit and Josie’s hesitant journeys down memory lane. As I said, this story is quietly charming, and I was certainly charmed. If you’re looking for a beach read this summer all you have to do is believe in these mermaids!

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I’m giving away a copy of When We Believed in Mermaids to one lucky (US/CAN) commenter on this tour!

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TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

All That Glitters is Gold Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the All That Glitters is Gold Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mama the Fox!

When I first saw the name of this particular blog hop, the following instantly came to my mind:

“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost…”

I first read those lines more than 50 years ago (OMG, OMG, OMG) when I was in the 4th Grade. A friend’s older brother had introduced me to The Lord of the Rings, and those are the words that Gandalf used to describe Aragorn, the last of the Rangers. I’ve been hooked on epic fantasy ever since – and will forever remember the person who introduced me to what become one of the great loves of my life. And by that I mean epic fantasy in general. As much as I loved LOTR, I still have arguments with it. (Not nearly enough women, not remotely enough women with agency, ARRRGGGHHH!)

But this blog hop is all about gold that actually does glitter. Or at least posits that all the things that glitter are gold. I was thinking that silver glitters, but it gleams more than it glitters. Or it glistens. Or something. I digress.

We all have things that glitter in memory. For me, that first introduction to epic fantasy is one, as is the memory of watching the original Star Trek with my dad, at least the final season, as it was broadcast. From thence comes my lifelong love affair with science fiction.

What about you? What was your first introduction to something that turned out to be a lifelong love or lifelong influence? Answer in the rafflecopter for your chance at one of my usual prizes, either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in books from the Book Depository.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more glittering prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on the hop!

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

Christmas in July Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Christmas in July Giveaway Hop, hosted by Bookhounds!

What do you think of the whole Xmas in July idea? I don’t celebrate Xmas, so to me the whole idea of doing it in July too feels rather blatantly commercial. Potentially a whole lot of fun, but if there’s any holiday that feels like a “Hallmark holiday” instead of a real one, this is probably it.  That Amazon has ganged onto for their Prime Day in July promotions just adds to that impression.

Although there is something ironic – at least here in the Northern Hemisphere – about celebrating a holiday that is normally accompanied by chilly weather and even snow at a time of the year when we’re more likely to be getting record-setting high temperatures than even a cool breeze.

Still, any chance to give or get presents is probably a good one. Hence this giveaway hop, and my usual rafflecopter giveaway of the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate or a $10 Book from the Book Depository. This giveaway is open to anywhere the Book Depository ships.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more terrific prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on this hop:

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 7-14-19

Sunday Post

The Star Spangled Giveaway Hop ends tomorrow, just in time for the Xmas in July and All That Glitters Giveaway Hops to begin!

Is it just me, or is summer absolutely flying by? It feels like they go faster the more of them I have behind me in the rearview mirror. Maybe it’s just me. All I can see is that our trip to Ireland for Worldcon is whizzing towards me at accelerating speed. I can’t wait! And Amy is going to take over the blog while I’m gone, so it should be fun times for everyone!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 Book in the Star Spangled Giveaway Hop (ends TOMORROW!)
Her Other Secret + The Protector by HelenKay Dimon
3 Signed Print Copies of Peach Clobbered by Anna Gerard

Blog Recap:

B+ Review: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
A- Review: Never Look Back by Alison Gaylin
B Review: Her Other Secret by HelenKay Dimon + Giveaway
A- Review: Peach Clobbered by Anna Gerard + Giveaway
A- Review: A Beach Wish by Shelly Noble
Stacking the Shelves (348)

Coming This Week:

Christmas in July Giveaway Hop
All That Glitters is Gold Giveaway Hop
When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal (blog tour review)
Sweep of the Blade by Ilona Andrews (review)
The Eagle Has Landed edited by Neil Clarke (review)

Stacking the Shelves (348)

Stacking the Shelves

Not a huge stack, but some interesting books on it all the same. Like always.

About Empress of Forever. Well, I was on a treadmill, and was about to bail on my second audiobook in a week. And I was in an SFnal mood and well, here we are. A couple of days in, this one looks like a winner! At least it keeps the time on the treadmill feeling shorter than it is – as an audiobook is supposed to do. There were a couple there that were making the time on the treadmill seem LONGER, and it’s long enough already!

For Review:
Angel Mage by Garth Nix
Black Hornet (Lew Griffin #3) by James Sallis
The Blacksmith Queen (Scarred Earth #1) by G.A. Aiken
Bluebottle (Lew Griffin #5) by James Sallis
The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup
Cooperative Lives by Patrick Finegan
Count on Me (Petal, Georgia #3) by Lauren Dane
Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh
Eye of the Cricket (Lew Griffin #4) by James Sallis
Ghost of a Flea (Lew Griffin #6) by James Sallis
Moth (Lew Griffin #2) by James Sallis

Purchased from Amazon/Audible:
Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone (audio)
Half Moon Street (Leo Stanhope #1) by Alex Reeve

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter


Review: A Beach Wish by Shelly Noble

Review: A Beach Wish by Shelly NobleA Beach Wish by Shelley Noble
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Chick Lit, women's fiction
Pages: 371
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on June 25, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

New York Times bestselling author Shelley Noble returns to the beach in her latest summer read about the family we create and the wishes we make that can shape us.

Zoe Bascombe has never said no to her family. When she blew her Juilliard audition, she caved to their wishes and went to business school. But when her mother dies and leaves instructions for Zoe to spread her ashes at a place called Wind Chime Beach, she defies her brothers and starts out for a New England town none of them has ever heard of and discovers a side of her garden club mother that her wildest dreams hadn’t imagined.

Zoe has another family.

Her first instinct is to run home. Instead she is caught in the middle of her feuding new relatives. With one family fighting among themselves and the other not speaking to her, Zoe must somehow find a way to bridge her new life with her old.

For the first time in her life, Zoe must make a stand for her family—both of them. If only she can only figure out how.

Her answer lies at Wind Chime Beach where for generations people have come to add their chimes to the ones already left among the trees. And when the wind blows and the air fills with music, their secrets, dreams, and hopes are sent into the world. There’s a message for Zoe here—if she has the courage to open her heart.

My Review:

A Beach Wish is purely delightful women’s fiction. Or chick lit. Some of the women who move forward with their lives in the course of this story are young enough to be figuring their lives out for the first time. And some are on their way to second, third or even fourth inventions of self. And one who might be on fifth or sixth – except that she fails, again.

That’s only part of the story.

As so many stories begin, to paraphrase Charles Dickens in his immortal Christmas Carol, Jenny Bascombe was dead, to begin with. But the mess she left behind is very much alive, and plenty of people are getting kicked in the process of resolving that mess.

Jenny left instructions upon her death. Detailed instructions. She was just that kind of organized. Buttoned-up. Controlled. Definitely controlled – at least for all of the life that her three sons and one daughter ever saw.

So her last request makes no sense whatsoever. For her daughter Zoe, and just her daughter Zoe, to take her ashes to a place called Wind Chime Beach and scatter them there.

Her two older brothers are up in arms. Her closest brother, Chris, wants to help her however he can.

But Zoe does what she has always done – she listens to her mother, one last time, and drives north from New Jersey to that beach.

Where she discovers that she never really knew her mother after all – but that there are a whole lot of people who did. And that they have all been waiting for Jenny to finally come home. One last time.

Escape Rating A-: I expected to like this, but I really, really liked this. Finishing at 2 am in the morning liked.

This is one of those stories where the family is hella complicated, and only gets crazier as it goes. Zoe’s two oldest brothers seem to be chips off the old block, meaning dear old (left mom for his secretary) dad. Not that they seem likely to bail on their wives, just that they’ve bought into the whole corporate, suit and tie, climbing the ladder of success, living their lives based on other people’s judgments, kind of thing.

Zoe and Chris are the rebels. Chris is an actor who is out of work as often as he’s in. He’s also gay, but that seems not to be much of an issue for the family (times definitely have changed, at least in fiction). But he’s not ever planning on doing the 9-to-5 routine that his brothers do, and it drives said brothers a bit crazy.

Zoe tried the 9-to-5 – more like the 7-to-whenever, but her job as an events manager to the stars has just dried up. She got into events managing the music business because she wanted to BE in the music business, but now she’s neither. And at more than enough loose ends to be willing to carry out her mother’s last request – no matter how little sense it makes.

Until it does. What makes this story so interesting and so much fun is what Zoe discovers at Wind Chime Beach. Once upon a time, her mother was someone entirely different from the uber-organized uber-planner who raised Zoe and her brothers.

And there are a whole lot of people who remember that Jenny. The Jenny who might have been her best self. Those people are ready and willing to welcome Zoe into their midst. Some with open arms, some with a clenched fist.

Figuring out the who and why of that past, and why Zoe’s strong resemblance to her mother evokes such strong reactions, is the heart and soul of this book. It’s Zoe’s journey of discovery, but that’s not all it is. It’s also a story of grief and reconciliation.

In the end, Zoe and the people Jenny left behind at Wind Chime Beach have a chance to finally say their goodbyes and move on with their lives. It makes for a fascinating contrast that one of them doesn’t. Some people don’t want closure, they want to clutch their hurts like pearls – and isn’t that all too human.

I enjoyed Zoe’s journey of discovery. I also found it refreshing that while Zoe opens her heart and lets plenty of new people into her life, there is no romance here – nor should there be. This is not intended to be a story about finding an HEA. It is appropriately, and wonderfully, a story about finding oneself. A Beach Wish is a terrific beach read – or a lovely read for any time at all.

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