A- #BookReview: The Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel

Posted on February 9, 2026February 7, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> book reviews

The Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: science fiction
Pages: 160
Published by St. Martin's Press on February 17, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Burned out and looking to put her past behind her, a former addict and recovering influencer interviews her fellow travelers en route to witness the first rain on Mars.

Sakunja Salazar had it all. Money, toys, women, and all the drugs money could buy. A breakout Holo influencer, seemingly overnight she lifted her family out of their tiny Mexico City apartment and into the world of the rich and famous. That all changed when she hopped on a rocket and blasted into the cosmos, never to hawk lavender moisturizer again.

What goes up must come down, and when Sakunja finally crashed back down on Mars an alcoholic, addict, and has-been she thought her life was pretty much over. That is, until a magazine editor discovered her photography and offered her a job. Now, she’s the resident documentarian on a barebones expedition seeking to be the first humans to witness rain on Mars. For the first time in her life, Sakunja is turning the spotlight on someone else–interviewing her fellow travelers about what brought them to join this incredibly foolhardy crew of souls adrift in a world unseen.

My Review:

The blurb isn’t exactly wrong, but the emphasis is on the wrong person. Not that Sakunja Salazar doesn’t tell her own story in this story, but it’s not about her. It’s about all of them, collectively. A somewhat motley crew of characters in search of the ineffable, surprisingly like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – and isn’t that a bit of a surprise?

The story takes place in a future that is close enough that we recognize the past they look back at as our present. More or less. Still, it’s far enough out that Mars has not just been colonized, but has been terraformed just long enough that the success of THAT enterprise is starting to show.

There’s water on Mars. Water that mostly falls in the form of snow, because it’s still DAMN cold, but water is starting to flow. And the oxygen level is rising – not enough to survive long term without an oxygen mask, BUT, enough that there are a few spots where it’s possible for a few hours on occasion – if one is very, very lucky.

Which this bunch hasn’t been, at least not so far. Because the ineffable that they have trekked far away from Mars’ safe and settled underground cities to see, the thing that they are seeking, is rain. Not snow, not merely free flowing water, but actual rain falling from a sky full of clouds. Something that has not happened on Mars since before humans evolved into, well, humans.

But it’s about to. It really is. The expedition hopes to be the first people to see it happen, to literally be in the place where it happens – even if that’s the biggest room in the world.

This could have been the story of the expedition, its planning, its execution, the minutiae of driving away from civilization to a remote location where something wondrous will appear. But that’s not the important bit.

This is a story about the journey – not the trek itself, but the journey that this group of seekers has taken, not just this single trip but the journey of their lives and the journeys that brought them to Mars in the first place. Even when those journeys are not theirs but their parents’ or grandparents’.

Very much like The Canterbury Tales, this is journalist Sakunja Salazar interviewing her fellow travelers, hearing their stories in their own words, painting a portrait of what brought each of them to this singular time and place – and what motivates them to keep going in the face of multiple disasters and setbacks – and not just on this particular trip.

Along the way she gets to tell her own story, to become part of this fascinating and surprising whole. And what comes after.

Escape Rating A-: As is frequently the case, I didn’t exactly know what I was getting into with this one – but I was sure it was short and sometimes that’s enough to start with. I was definitely misled just a bit by the blurb, because that description left me expecting a kind of redemption story, that Sakunja had hit rock bottom and was going to come out better for this experience – or possibly not.

This isn’t that story, and it’s better for it. For one thing, Sakunja has already reinvented herself. Not that she didn’t hit rock bottom, but that sorry state is in her rearview and has been for years. She doesn’t need the money for doing the article, what she’s looking for here is the experience of looking outward instead of inward. She doesn’t want to be the star this time around, because she recognizes that the part of her life where she was was empty.

So the story is about her being just like everyone else on the trip. They each have a story. They’ve each done stupid things and glorious things. They are each in pursuit of something indefinable, something that they find – not in the water, but in their bonding with each other.

This isn’t exactly a light story – although it has light moments. Each of the travelers has survived life’s tragedies, each has experienced something less than a happy ending. But each has also found a kind of peace within themselves – even as they frantically hold each other up as their trek faces setbacks that cut their odds of either seeing what they came to see or surviving the journey.

But their individual stories, and their collective story, do a marvelous job of representing the human experience – even in a place that is far from where our species began. I’m glad I read this one., and I’ll certainly look for this author again.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 2-8-26

Posted on February 8, 2026February 6, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

Reading-wise, it was a very good week. In the getting-things-done department, it was a bit less successful. I started out behind because of Monday’s post, which was not what I’d originally planned. We also had insulation installers in on Wednesday and the plumbers on Friday, so more disruption than I care to have. But it was all necessary, and I’ll get caught up eventually. Probably. Hopefully.

We always say that there is a LOT of Tuna to love. This picture is proof. Admittedly, the Tuna-butt isn’t quite as ginormous as it looks here but let’s just say the perspective was unfortunate for Tuna’s ego. If Tuna HAD an ego, that is. While Hecate and Luna are trying to out-queen each other, Tuna is definitely diving for the position of omega-cat. He’s not quite as self-effacing – and even self-erasing – as poor, sweet, dim Erasmus, but he’s not exactly putting his rather large self front and center in any way. Still, he knows he’s loved and that’s what really matters!

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 in Books in the Winter 2025-2026 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Blog Recap:

The Overachievers’ Book Club AKA 2026 Reading List Awards
A- #BookReview: No Matter the Cost by Anna Hackett
B+ #BookReview: Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb
A- #BookReview: Nightshade and Oak by Molly O’Neill
Grade A #BookReview: The Daughter Who Remains by Nnedi Okorafor
Stacking the Shelves (691)

Coming This Week:

The Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel (#BookReview)
Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett (#BookReview)
After the Fall by Edward Ashton (#BookReview)
Trailbreaker by Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare (#AudioBookReview, #BookTour)
The Midnight Taxi by Yosha Gunasekera (#BookReview, #BookTour)

Stacking the Shelves (691)

Posted on February 7, 2026February 6, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

We definitely have some gorgeous covers this time around. YAY! Daggerbound, Exit Party, The Eye of Leviathan, Murder Unabridged and Twig’s Traveling Tomes are each pretty in their own ways. And I love both Murder Unabridged and Twig’s Traveling Tomes for the delightful depictions of books. While Daggerbound is beautiful in its own right AND fits in beautifully with the theme started in the Swordheart re-release.

Daggerbound is obviously the book I’m most looking forward to reading in this stack, because Kingfisher, because Swordheart was just so marvelous and it cried out for a sequel that I’ve been waiting for for months! I’m also really looking forward to getting into Demons and Diplomacy, First Witches Club and Love on the Shelf.

AND I’m noticing there are lot of books about bookish places in this stack, a lot of books about witches, and more than a few that manage to combine the two themes. This week’s stack looks like FUN!

What about YOUR stack this week? Which fun books are calling your name?

witch in notting hill by alexandra paige

where the sky begins by cindy dees and mary wine

oxford guide to scandal and lies by kate westbury

twig's traveling tomes by gryffin murphy

fundamentals of being a good girl by julie murphy and sierra simone

For Review:
The Best Little Motel in Texas by Lyla Lane
A City Dreaming (Astra Black #3) by Maurice Broaddus
Daggerbound (Swordheart #2) by T. Kingfisher
Demons and Diplomacy (Ministry of Supernatural Affairs #1) by Megan Frampton
The Devil and Mrs. Gooch by Oliver Darkshire
Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel
The Eye of Leviathan (Sea Beyond #1) by M.A. Carrick
Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl (Academic Affairs #1) by Julie Murphy & Sierra Simone
It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica
A Lady for All Seasons by TJ Alexander
Love on the Shelf by Sheila Roberts
Murder Unabridged (Old Juniper Bookshop #3) by P.J. Nelson
Murder Will Out by Jennifer K. Breedlove
Not Till We Are Lost (Bobiverse #5) by Dennis E. Taylor
The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies by Kate Westbury
A Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-young, translated by Sophie Bowman
Take Me with You by Steven Rowley
Twig’s Traveling Tomes by Gryffin Murphy
Where the Sky Begins by Cindy Dees and Mary Wine
A Witch in Notting Hill by Alexandra Paige

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
First Witches Club by Maisey Yates (Amazon First Reads)

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:

Grade A #BookReview: The Daughter Who Remains by Nnedi Okorafor

Posted on February 6, 2026February 3, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> book reviews

The Daughter Who Remains (She Who Knows, #3) by Nnedi Okorafor
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: African Futurism, science fantasy, science fiction
Series: She Who Knows #3
Pages: 192
Published by DAW on February 17, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Set in the universe Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor first introduced in the World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, The Daughter Who Remains is the breathtaking conclusion to the She Who Knows trilogy
Featuring Najeeba, now older and wiser than readers have ever known her, this is a tale of family,courage, and healing

Najeeba has something terrible to kill.

And now she’s off to go and kill it. A fully trained, mature, and sharply focused sorcerer (don’t call her sorceress), Najeeba has left the comfort and security of her town with two companions, the glass maker Dedan and the old camel MorningStar. This journey takes her back to where it all began. And despite the fact that her training with the sorcerer Aro forced her to face her deepest fears, she hasn’t seen anything close to what she’s about to see.

As the Igbo proverb goes, a masquerade does not dance for nothing. The Daughter Who Remains is the final book in the She Who Knows trilogy. This tale isn’t about Najeeba learning to master her powerful skills, it’s about her having the audacity and courage to use them and use them well…no matter the consequence.

My Review:

This final novella in the She Who Knows trilogy brings the story of Najeeba, the ‘she who knows’ of the series title, full circle, back to the place – if not the time or even the world – where she began in the opening book, also titled She Who Knows after Najeeba herself.

Najeeba’s first daughter was Onyesonwu, Who Fears Death, a woman who clearly didn’t. Onyesonwu sacrificed her life, indeed, her very existence, to fix their broken world and make it a place where their people – and indeed all people – had a chance to not just survive, but thrive.

But that sacrifice didn’t just kill Onyesonwu and the friends who willingly undertook that journey with her. It also erased her existence from time and memory and rewrote the entire history of the world, even in the memories of the people who were alive at the time of her sacrifice.

Even the history books rewrote themselves to reflect the new past that resulted from her sacrifice.

Najeeba calls that time, the time she bore and raised her first daughter, as ‘The Before’. It’s a time that only sorcerers like Najeeba – as well as a few others who have certain particular kinds of magic – remember at all.

But Najeeba does remember that ‘Before’. It’s not just that she remembers the daughter she gave to history, but that she remembers her own history, the mistakes she made, the evils she encountered and the cursed duty she accepted from her father as he was dying. Dying as a result of one of her mistakes.

Najeeba has lived her life twice over, her childhood and young womanhood in The Before, and a life of training and purpose and happiness and even redemption in the world that came after Onyesonwu’s sacrifice.

As this final entry in Najeeba’s story opens, she is pregnant and on a journey across the desert. Just as all sorcerers learn the manner of their own deaths at the completion of their training, Najeeba knows that this journey is fated.

It’s time for her to return to the place where she was born – even if that is no longer the place that she remembers OR the place that remembers her. Because she made her father a promise as he lay dying. She promised to kill the monster who blighted his family before Najeeba herself was ever born.

A monster who has been blighting her people, taking away the best and the brightest, those who have the ability to change the world for the better – and making them less than they could be. Less than their people need them to be if the world is to keep moving forward.

It’s her duty to kill the seemingly unkillable, knowing that she will sacrifice herself in fulfilling that last duty to her father. Little does she know that her promise was fated all along. Because she might have been willing to let the cup pass to another – but she cannot, she will not, let this monster diminish the light of the daughter who remains.

Escape Rating A: This series has been terrific from the very beginning, and this final volume does a marvelous job of pulling together the remaining loose ends, taking the story back to its – and Najeeba’s start and bringing her life, her journey and her story to a right, fitting and beautiful end for her and for the reader.

This is a hint not to start here at the end. If Najeeba’s journey sounds as fascinating to you as it turned out to be for this reader, start with She Who Knows (sometimes titled She Who Knows: Firespitter) and be prepared for an epic journey.

While THIS entire saga serves as a kind of framing story for the author’s award-winning epic, Who Fears Death, it is not absolutely necessary to read that earlier book in order to be fully engaged and enmeshed in this series. I know it’s not because I haven’t read it YET, and yet found Najeeba’s journey utterly absorbing.

This final entry in the series manages to combine both a closing and an opening, as contradictory as those two states often are. Najeeba is closing the circle of her life. She KNOWS this is her final journey, she knows she’s heading towards her death. So there’s more than a bit of a sense of melancholy, both on her own part and particularly on the part of her husband Dedan.

While Najeeba is also dealing with, or perhaps that should be toying with, the idea of letting this cup pass to another. The Before is gone, unremembered and unremarked. And, as is often the case, as she marches towards her death she finally finds much of what she has been seeking all of her life. She finds a place she can truly call home. She finds joy in her life and especially in the newborn daughter she names Ikuku but the home she wants to adopt calls Sssolu.

She’s lost this child before she ever really got to know her, and it’s not fair.

But neither is the monster she must kill, and it’s in that fight and the reasons for it that so much resonance to the entire saga and to the ‘real’ world comes into fascinating play. ‘The Cleanser’, the demon she must kill, is frightening in a very real way that I can’t stop thinking about.

The Cleanser ‘cleanses’ her people of their best and brightest, taking those who have the power and capability to change their world, to make things better, and diminishes them, giving them so-called ‘gifts’ that seem marvelous but are ultimately empty. It takes away their drive and gives them beauty, fortune and charisma. They spend their lives seeking adoration and adulation, but waste their promise. From a certain, 21st century perspective, they become entertainers and influencers instead of scientists and engineers. Instead of being people who DO, they become people are merely ARE, generation after generation.

And their world, and perhaps ours, is a poorer place for that, even though our world, at least, is a richer place for this author’s fantastic and fascinating work..

A- #BookReview: Nightshade and Oak by Molly O’Neill

Posted on February 5, 2026February 3, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> book reviews

Nightshade and Oak by Molly O'Neill
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, historical fantasy, mythology, retellings
Pages: 288
Published by Orbit on February 3, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

An Iron Age goddess must grapple with becoming human in this delightful historical fantasy of myth and magic from the author of the instant hit Greenteeth.
When Malt, the goddess of death, is accidentally turned into a human by a wayward spell, she finds she's ill-equipped to deal with the trials of a mortal life.
After all, why would a goddess need to know how to gather food or light a fire?
Trapped in a body that's frustratingly feeble, she's forced to team up with Bellis, warrior daughter of Boudicca on a perilous journey across Roman-occupied Britain to the afterlife to try to restore her powers. As animosity turns to attraction, these two very different women must learn to work together if they are to have any hope of surviving their quest.

My Review:

The Nightshade AND the Oak of this historical/mythical retelling met on the fringes of a battle that was already lost, the end of a war that was passing into myth and legend even as they contended over the last bits of it.

The location, at least, is fitting for them both. The Nightshade is Mallt-y-Nos, a shadowy figure out of Welsh mythology, a chooser of the slain who would have kept good company with the Morrigan and the Valkyries.

The battle just lost – or won depending on one’s point of view – was the last battle in Boudica’s bloody rebellion against the Romans who stole her land, oppressed her people, and broke their oaths and raped her and her daughters as well as the lands they once held sacred.

The Romans are in their rapacious ascendancy, the rebellion that would have turned the tide of history has been put down in blood, and Boudica is dead. Her younger daughter is on the brink of that same state. Which is the point where Mallt-y-Nos comes to release the soul of Cati, princess of the Iceni, to the Afterlife.

But Belis, the older daughter of Boudica and the Oak of the Iceni, has other plans. Or rather, Belis, in her desperation to save something of her family and herself, has been playing with magic that she really does not understand or control. In her desperation, she has perverted the natural flow of magic in the world – and quite possibly, but entirely unwittingly, saved it.

Escape Rating A-: This was really good, but it was also really sad, and I think that’s reflected in the rating. I picked this up because I adored the author’s debut, Greenteeth, and I was hoping for more of the same. Which I mostly got, BUT, really big huge BUT here, while Greenteeth’s magical quest walked through some very dark places and had some equally dark potential outcomes, in the end it doesn’t actually go to those places and the reader ends the story with a smile of wonder.

Nightshade & Oak starts in a dark place and ends in tragedy. Maybe not as big a tragedy as it could have, but the ending is still sad. It’s also the right ending, it’s as good as this situation can get, but that doesn’t make it a happy ending. I didn’t expect one, but I was still plenty sad about it when I finished.

If Grace Curtis’s Idolfire had a book baby with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice midwifed by the trend of fantasy/mythic retellings from formerly ignored perspectives, it would be this book. Nightshade & Oak is a historical fantasy, set at the end of Boudica’s rebellion, told from the combined perspectives of one of Boudica’s daughters and a figure out of Welsh myth. It casts the Romans as the villains – which they absolutely were from a Briton’s perspective however Western history might paint them.

The story in Nightshade & Oak is a magical quest story as Greenteeth was. When it begins, both Mallt and Belis think they’re going to take a trip to the Underworld to bring back the soul of Belis’ sister. But the quest has already gone pear-shaped. Part of Belis’ mis-use of magic has taken Mallt’s supernatural powers. She’s just a human. Actually less than ‘just’ a human because she’s utterly clueless about being merely human and resents Belis at every turn even as she rails at her own weakness and everything around her.

Belis is hiding a huge secret, and she takes her fear and guilt out on Mallt. But they are all each other has got to get them through this, so their romance seems both inevitable and doomed. Only because it is – as long as they manage to get themselves out of the mess that Belis’ panicked single-mindedness AND Mallt’s blithe overconfidence have gotten both their land and themselves into.

In the end, I had some mixed feelings about Nightshade & Oak, but those are mostly my own. It’s a fascinating take on history and myth and historical myth and I was absolutely there for that part. (In my head I’m drawing parallels between the Romans’ magical attacks on Britain and Hitler’s attempts at the same and I’d personally love to go down that rabbit hole…) The magical quest reminded me a LOT and with fondness of both Greenteeth and Idolfire between the darkness of the places it has to go through, the lengths they need to go to in order to resolve everything that needs resolution as much as it can be. The romance between Mallt and Belis also follows the same sad but inevitable course as the romance in Idolfire, but the characters do know that’s where they’re headed and they know it’s necessary. It’s just not what I wanted to happen.

In short, Nightshade & Oak is a terrific historical fantasy retelling that makes me wish there were more such books about Boudica and her daughters, so I hope one or more authors pick up on that. But it’s also not a book to read if you NEED an escape with a happy ending, because this doesn’t, and more importantly shouldn’t, have one. Dammit.

#BookReview: Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on February 4, 2026February 3, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B+ Reviews> book reviews

Stolen in Death (In Death, #62) by J.D. Robb
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: futuristic, mystery, romantic suspense, suspense, thriller
Series: In Death #62
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on February 3, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A violent death and a vault of stolen treasures has Eve Dallas struggling to solve crimes old and new in the latest thriller in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series.
A blow to the head with a block of amethyst has left multibillionaire Nathan Barrister dead―while nearby, a vault, its door ajar, sits filled with priceless paintings, jewelry, and other treasures. Lieutenant Eve Dallas’s husband, Roarke―who misspent his youth in Ireland as a scrappy thief―recognizes at least two stolen pieces among the hoard. The crime scene suggests a burglar caught in the act. But only one item seems to be missing.
Then it’s revealed that the vault had actually belonged to the victim’s late father―and no one in the household knew it was there until a recent remodeling project exposed it. To protect the family name and business, they explain to Eve, they’d been looking for a way to return the ill-gotten gains anonymously and avoid the police. But now the police are all over their elegant house, and have a bigger, bloodier mystery to solve.
By all accounts, Nathan Barrister was a good man, a generous employer, a devoted husband and father. As for his father―he clearly had secrets. Now it’s up to Eve and her team to find out if those secrets got Nathan killed―and if it was a crime of passion or revenge.

My Review:

This 62nd entry in the In Death series was a whole lot of fun with just a bit of angst to give it spice – and an extra body or two.

Well, it’s fun for the reader. In the end, it’s also fun for Dallas’ bosses, Commander Whitney and Chief Tibble, as they get to go out and arrest a murderer who really, really deserves it. Although THAT scenario does make Dallas more than a bit nervous. After all, it’s been a while since these two gentlemen have been out on the street. It wouldn’t be good for her career if she lost the NYPSD’s top brass in an operation, no matter how big, whether they (eagerly and enthusiastically) volunteered for the duty or not.

But there’s just a bit of angst in this case for Dallas and Roarke. Not the crime itself, but all the crimes that it leads back to. Some of which, back in the days before he met Dallas, were Roarke’s.

A man is dead, to begin with. That’s where the stories in this series usually begin. This particular death also begins in a scenario that Dallas has often imagined but doesn’t really wish would happen. Mostly.

She’s at a big deal charity gala, dressed to the nines, in painfully sharp high heels. Or at least that’s how the evening began – the part where she imagines that she wouldn’t mind getting rescued by a timely murder somewhere else. But just when it’s gotten to the good parts, with Dallas and Roarke and their friends closing down a truly swanky bar, she gets the call that there’s been a homicide at an equally swanky personal residence.

So off she goes to the home of Nathan Barrister, dead on the scene, while she’s still dressed to hobnob with the rich and famous. Which is exactly what she’s doing at Barrister’s residence. It’s just that the man himself is dead, in the midst of what looks like an interrupted burglary, with a floor-to-ceiling safe full of priceless stolen treasures gaping open and sparkling behind his body.

That vault is a very shiny Pandora’s Box. The contents, one and all, were stolen – and famously so. Many if not most of them were stolen when Nathan Barrister was literally still in short pants, much too young to have been the planner or the buyer of these very hot commodities. His dear old dad, Henry Barrister, very much on the other hand, was a self-made billionaire many times over, and had just the right sort of acquisitive personality to have bought and paid for both the goods AND the actual theft of them.

That the last decade or so of Barrister senior’s acquisition of his very private collection overlapped, just barely, with Roarke’s own career as a high end thief adds more layers to the already complex puzzle. Because the most famous piece in that collection was definitely one of Roarke’s early jobs – even though he was never caught. Not that he wasn’t suspected of being part of the crew that stole the Royal Suite of emeralds. But there was no crew, and there were no breadcrumbs leading back to him. Now he’s on the straight and narrow, with a cop for a wife who wouldn’t have him any other way, and neither of them can afford to have that old crime traced back to him.

He’s confident that it won’t be. Dallas is trying her best to be just as confident that he’s right.

But Senior has been dead for months by the time his son gets murdered over the Royal Suite, which has been stolen (again) straight out of a vault that not even the family knew existed until after the old man was gone. Whatever he was responsible for then – he can’t be responsible for the theft and murder now.

Or can he?

Escape Rating B+: This book reminded me a lot of last week’s Make It Out Alive. The two cop shops are a bit similar, and the teams both scratch the same ‘competence porn’ itch when I read them. In particular, these two books reminded me of each other because they had the same feel to them.

As I was reading, I was absolutely riveted in both cases. The pace was relentless and the story absolutely pulled me along at breakneck speeds. Both were one-day, one-sitting reads – even if my seat did move around the house a bit while I read.

But both stories suffered from a bit of ‘villain fail’. The villain in Make It Out Alive was more of a caricature than a character. The real villains in Stolen in Death, well, one was so obvious I saw it way before Dallas did. The whydunnit took a bit longer, but the whodunnit was entirely too easy.

The other villain was all wrapped up in the reasons why Dallas wasn’t quite as confident that Roarke’s past wasn’t about to come back and bite them as he was, because it already was. Just as the Royal Suite was from one of his jobs back in the day, so was the second villain. Magdelana Percell has tried to get Roarke back before, particularly in Innocent in Death – which she wasn’t, either then, now OR dead – and it didn’t work AT ALL. In the end of that story, Dallas punched the woman in the face for her presumption. That Magdelana’s back to either try yet again with Roarke or stick it to both of them for THEIR rejection represented a fascinating blast from the past that managed not to go all the way to the angst factory yet still created plenty of additional tension.

Along with a reminder that, while the series began publishing in our world in 1995 with Naked in Death, the time that has elapsed within the books began in 2058, and has only progressed to 2061 by the time of this story. That’s a mere THREE years for Dallas and Roarke, but THIRTY-ONE years for the reader. Something that this book very much reminds us of as Dallas is 33 in this book and Roarke is 37. It seems like a long time has passed since the first book, and it has FOR US, but not for them.

This series is always a comfort read for me, and this entry was no exception. I loved catching up with the progress on Peabody’s and McNab’s (and Mavis’, Leonardo’s and Bella’s) new house, Detective Sergeant Jenkinson’s latest eye-watering ties and especially Galahad’s ongoing campaign to steal breakfast from his humans. The case wasn’t the biggest or most complicated one that Dallas has ever solved, but watching her team’s process of pulling together the complex web of threads was as fun as ever. That this particular investigation held a dark thread of angst on Dallas’ part regarding Roarke getting caught over his ‘former’ career added a layer of tension even as his smugness over his previous accomplishments lightened the mood while they each worried about the consequences to the other.

All in all, and as always, I’m happy to have had another opportunity to see how all my ‘book friends’ are doing, and I’m already looking forward to the next book in the series, Fury in Death, coming in September.

A- #BookReview: No Matter the Cost by Anna Hackett

Posted on February 3, 2026February 2, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> book reviews

No Matter the Cost (Unsanctioned #2) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Unsanctioned #2
Pages: 283
Published by Anna Hackett on January 28, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

I’ll make her mine, if she doesn’t kill me first.
Bastian
I came from nothing and became known as the Reaper. The most feared CIA assassin in the business. Then I retired, faked my death, and now spend my time running my casino.
But there’s one part of my past I can’t let go—the tiny female assassin who’s vowed to kill me.
We were mentored by the same man, a man we both considered a father, but there’s nothing brotherly about what I feel for
Lark.
Now, we’re enemies and she won’t rest until I’m dead.
I won’t rest until she’s mine.

Lark
I have one mission—kill Bastian Thorne.
I lost everything when my parents were murdered. Until a grizzled CIA agent took me in and molded me into a deadly assassin.
Then Bastian executed him.
My plan: infiltrate Bastian’s luxurious life and take him down. But he proves hard to kill and forces me to face an ugly, tangled truth.
Secrets from my past collide with my blood-drenched present. I find myself in the sights of a dangerous killer. One with twisted reasons for wanting me dead.
Now, the only man I can trust is my enemy.
But I know getting close to Bastian is the biggest risk of all.

My Review:

RED was code for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous” at least according to the classic action movie (OMG only from 2010) of the same name. A movie which was based loosely on a comic book mini-series.

Both the comic series and the movie were about a group of retired assassins who were still so DAMN dangerous that their former organizations put a hit out on them. With disastrous, downright deadly, consequences for the would-be hitters. The targets emerged more-or-less unscathed.

I’m reminding you of this because those retired assassins in RED would have a lot in common with the Unsanctioned crew in Las Vegas, as they are also retired, extremely dangerous, assassins who are still willing to work the occasional side job if it’s righteous – and so far they absolutely have been.

Righteous, necessary, and damn good reads. And romances, which, come to think of it, was also true of that first RED movie.

But the story in the Unsanctioned series is even more action-packed than the movie (and that’s saying something!) because the gentlemen who own, operate and live near the Avernus casino in Las Vegas, “retired” a bit earlier than the crew in RED. So, they have had a bit harder time figuring out what to do with themselves after they’ve gotten out of the adrenaline-soaked game of killing for their respective countries and/or organizations – and even more energy to burn while they do it.

Not that everyone doesn’t have at least a bit of trouble dealing with that transition, but for these guys, it’s considerably more than just a bit. They all got out while they still had a bit of their souls left, they got out clean-ish which is as good as that was going to EVER get, and they got out with enough money to set themselves up in style. All they had to do was figure out what to, well, DO with themselves.

In the first book, Burn the World Down, their little found family of (mostly) former killers found their true calling, and one member, Nash Oakley, found that he had an option on a second chance with the one woman he could never forget. A woman who had taken the walk to the ‘dark side’ on her very own, and was more than ready to join him there.

In this second book, Sebastian Thorne is in a bit of the same quandary. The woman he can’t forget is someone he never let himself think about that way. Because his CIA mentor adopted her and trained her to be one of them. Another assassin. But when they were part of the same little killing family, Bastian was nearly a decade older and he couldn’t let himself think of her as anything but a little girl.

Lark’s not a little girl anymore – but she’s definitely still the deadly assassin that their mentor trained so rigorously. And this time, she has Bastian in her sights. Because he killed their mentor – her father-figure. Now her heart is set on revenge.

At least that’s what she told herself when she buried one of her knives in Bastian at the end of the first book. Her reasons for stabbing him in the shoulder instead of in the heart she’s certain he doesn’t have…she doesn’t want to examine those too closely because they might bring her world crashing down around her.

If someone else doesn’t get there first.

Escape Rating A-: First, I have to admit that I got into this one for the story – which is not a bad thing at all. Of course it’s not. However, as has been true for the last several of this author’s books, the original cover did not wow me. (shown at left for comparison as your ogling mileage may definitely vary). However, I have been loving the special edition covers, so that’s the one that I’ve used as the feature for this post and on Instagram.

Romantic suspense series, which Unsanctioned most definitely is, often begin with the premise that someone needs saving – and it’s usually the female main character. Whether or not a story/series with that premise works for this reader depends a whole lot on the why of that formula. Why does she need saving?

It’s not about the reason per se, but rather that the reason often runs counter to my thing for competence porn. (OMG that’s a more, well, potent pun than usual for this series, but moving right along…) What I mean to say is that both the suspense and the romance work a LOT less well for me if the FMC needs saving because she’s either #TSTL (Too Stupid to Live) or because she reacts stupidly to a situation that is obviously a dangerous trap of some kind.

I love a romance of equals, and that’s hard to achieve when one character has been too much of an idiot. (I’m not fond of the male main character being an idiot either, but their idiocy – at least in romantic suspense – tends to go down a different track, usually the “I’m not worthy” fallacy. I digress. Sort of.)

All of that means that I loved Lark as Bastian’s romantic interest/would-be assassin because she’s every bit as competent as he is at the same job on the same dark side. They’re each as worthy – or unworthy – as the other, so whatever emotional rabbit holes they go down, they go down together.

While someone in the shadows wants to put them both down – for good. Or rather, for bad. Let’s just say thoroughly and completely as “good” and “bad” don’t work in this case – at all.

Except in the sense that Lark starts out believing that Sebastian killed their mentor in cold blood. Which, in truth, he did. But his reasons for that hit were righteous – although she’s just not willing to listen. At least not at first. Reaching that point takes them from the opposite sides of a very personal conflict to the same side against a mutual enemy. An enemy targeting them both.

And the enemy of my enemy is at least my friend. Or, in the case of Bastian and Lark, something a whole lot more intimate leading to closure for some of the biggest questions in both of their lives AND a well-earned and well-deserved happy ever after.

For after that happy ever after, there’s a bit of a teaser for the next book in this series, which looks like it won’t be out until summer or later this year at the earliest. Still, I have the author’s next Hunter Squad and Langston Hotels books to look forward to in the first half of this year. Which I certainly am.

The Overachievers’ Book Club AKA 2026 Reading List Awards

Posted on February 2, 2026February 2, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | American Library Association> Book Awards> book lists

The first rule of Book Club is: You do not talk about Book Club. However, we’ve done our work for the year, so now I CAN talk about what we did this year. Specifically, THIS particular book club, otherwise known as the American Library Association RUSA CODES Reading List Council.

Sometimes, in discussion, usually while celebrating AND bemoaning the literal mountain of books we have to get through in any single year, we call it the Overachievers’ Book Club.

Many people, not just librarians, are aware of the Newbery and Caldecott Awards for children’s books. If you have or had a child, or if you were a child, you probably remember those books with the big gold sticker on them. The Newbery and Caldecott Awards have been around since 1922 and 1938 respectively, and have garnered a tremendous amount of respect and prestige in the book world, both because they’ve been around for so long AND because there’s nothing else even close for children’s books.

Less well known, but more germane to my reading interests, ALA also has a number of awards for adult books. Admittedly there’s a LOT more competition in the adult book awards space, so attention gets divided between, well, US, and every other award out there.

I say ‘US’ because I’ve been a member of one or another of ALA’s Adult Book Awards committees every year starting in 2012. I’ve just completed my second first year on The Reading List Council. (I served on the Reading List for four years, then had to cycle off for a year – or in this case, two – before coming back on.)

Serving on any of these committees – and I’m including the Newbery and Caldecott committees because their process is similar even though their remit is different – is a LOT of (volunteer) work. We do it because we love the books we’re working with, and/or we love discussing the books with a bunch of people who are equally passionate about books – if not necessarily the same books.

In the year that just ended that resulted in the 2026 Reading List Awards, the committee looked at more than 750 books to come up with one winner and four shortlisted (honorable mention) titles in eight genres, Adrenaline (think of this as Thriller), Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Relationship Fiction (AKA Women’s Fiction), Romance and Science Fiction.

So, before I talk about the books that made the final list (it’s out now, so I can talk about it) I want to give a big, huge, grateful shoutout to the members of the committee who made it all possible through a whole lot of laughs, more than a few tears at some of the sad endings, mutual therapy sessions about how much we had to read how fast and what was real life anyway and just everything that goes into making this possible. We had a blast, even during the four-day Zoom extravaganza where we made the final decisions.

The 2026 Reading List Council consisted of Amy Dittmeier, Des Plaines Public Library, chair; Kara Krekeler, University City Public Library, vice-chair; Hilary Albert, Mahopac Public Library; Marcie Beard, Provo City Library; Craig Clark, Upper Arlington OH; Julie Kane, Washington and Lee University; Edward Kownslar, Stephen F. Austin State University; Suzanne Krohn, Richmond Free Library (VT); Robyn Lupa, Jefferson County Public Library (CO); Karin Suni, Free Library of Philadelphia; and yours truly from Chez Reading Reality, Marlene Harris.

And now for the awards – and a bit of how we got there. We start out in February, which means that the 2027 committee is just about ready to get started. All eleven of us immediately start throwing potential books on the virtual pile – which is how that pile gets so high. It’s the vice-chair’s job to contact the publishers and get copies of the books for all of us. From there, it’s a bit of a winnowing process. We don’t so much vote stuff off the island as we vote stuff up to the top of the pile. After multiple rounds of that upvoting, in mid-January – meaning just last month – we whittle the final pile of 80 or so books down to the actual awards list. Which was highlighted in Chair Amy Dittmeier’s presentation as part of the Adult Book & Media Awards posted on Facebook AND included in press releases that were posted last week.

And now, at last (drumroll, please!) the awards. Because that’s what it’s all been about all along. Celebrating the best books of the year.

Adrenaline (as I said above, basically thrillers, more or less)
Winner: Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan

Short List: (alphabetical order by title because we’re librarians)
Dead Money by Jakob Kerr
A Killing Cold by Kate Allen Marshall
Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson
The Oligarch’s Daughter by Joseph Finder

Fantasy
Winner: The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig

Short List:
Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
Red City by Marie Lu
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

Historical Fiction
Winner: These Heathens by Mia McKenzie

Short List:
Eleanore of Avignon by Elizabeth DeLozier
Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
The Last Witch by C.J. Cooke
The Pretender by Jo Harkin

Horror
Winner: Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

Short List:
House of Monstrous Women by Daphne Fama
King Sorrow by Joe Hill
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

Mystery
Winner: The Witch’s Orchard by Archer Sullivan

Short List:
The Case of the Missing Maid by Rob Osler
Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan
Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd
Murder in the Dressing Room by Holly Stars

Relationship Fiction (This used to be called ‘Women’s Fiction’ but we all still hate that name and it’s not remotely accurate anyway)
Winner: Didn’t You Use to Be Queenie B? By Terri-Lynne DeFino

Short List:
Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E. Smith
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
The Stand-In Dad by Alex Summers
Trust Me On This by Lauren Parvizi

Romance
Winner: I Think They Love You by Julian Winters

Short List:
Deep End by Ali Hazelwood
First-Time Caller by B.K. Borison
Tusk Love by Thea Guanzon
Voidwalker by S.A. MacLean

Science Fiction
Winner: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Short List:
The Heist of Hollow London by Eddie Robson
Hole in the Sky by Daniel H. Wilson
When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory
Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler

Consider the above a list of very strong recommendations. If you’re looking for a terrific book to read, whether in a genre you love or to check out something you’ve been curious about but haven’t dipped into yet, these books are an EXCELLENT place to start.

Obviously, this has not been one of my usual book reviews, but I like to think it stands for about 40 of them. Also, we worked hard on the committee and the authors who provided us with books this year worked even harder. I wanted to give both them and us a shout out. (So the images will all be going up on Instagram later today as well so I can tag all the authors!)

Working with the members of the 2026 committee was an absolute ball – even if I occasionally bawled at some of the sad endings. Because I enjoy the work – and quite possibly because I’m a bit crazy according to at least one of my colleagues – I’ve signed up to do it again this coming year, as the Vice-Chair and book-getter this time around. I’m already looking forward to seeing what our list looks like this time NEXT year!

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 2-1-26

Posted on February 1, 2026February 1, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

It’s our second “Winter Wonderland” weekend in a row! This is not what we moved to Atlanta for at all. But it sure is pretty as long as one is on the inside while the blizzard is OUTSIDE.

But it’s not completely outside as this picture of George certainly attests. The catio is fully screened in so the cats can’t get out, but very small things can get in. Like leaf bits. And bugs. And SNOW! George, who tends to be more of a Serious George than a Curious George, nevertheless can’t resist exploring the strange, cold white stuff that has invaded his domain.

Today is February 1, and a cold blustery one it is. It’s also the day that new terms start for the various American Library Association Book Awards Committees. I served on the 2026 Reading List Award Council this past year. While I can’t talk about which books are in contention while the contention is going on, I can now that they’ve been officially announced. The press release detailing all our winners and shortlisted titles is at https://rusaupdate.org/2026/01/2026-reading-list-years-best-in-genre-fiction-for-adult-readers/.

I’m including this information in this Sunday Post for two reasons. Tomorrow’s post will be about the process and the results in a bit more detail. It’s kind of a shout out both to the wonderful people I worked with on the committee this past year, and to celebrate the authors who provided us with the marvelous books that we read. In the past, these awards were announced and celebrated at the ALA Midwinter Conference, but the Midwinter Conference is no more. So I decided on a little bit of hoopla of my own.

Also, this note is here to serve as a transparency notice. I will be serving on Reading List again this year, and our new terms officially start today. That there is a bit of a lull between the final deliberations of the 2026 committee and the start of the 2027 committee, means that my Stacking the Shelves posts have been a bit lighter than usual. Once the new committee gets into its full swing, they’ll embiggen again. During the year, I do not mention which books are in the Stack or are being reviewed because of the committee. After all, the first rule about Book Club is that we don’t talk about Book Club. At least not until the official Press Release comes out!

Coming This Week:

The Overachievers’ Book Club AKA 2026 Reading List Awards (#FeaturePost )
No Matter the Cost by Anna Hackett (#BookReview)
Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb (#BookReview)
Nightshade and Oak by Molly O’Neill (#BookReview)
The Daughter Who Remains by Nnedi Okorafor (#BookReview)

Stacking the Shelves (690)

Posted on January 31, 2026January 30, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

This isn’t exactly a “pretty” list, is it? Pretty interesting, yes. Pretty is as pretty does, perhaps. Outright pretty, not so much. Although Magic and Mischief at the Wayside Hotel and Trouble’s Turn to Lose are both pretty cute and The Half Life is pretty in a realistic way. I guess they’ll have to do.

Very much on the other hand – or claw, as the case might be – Dragons Gone Wild is a cover that certainly does reach out and grab you, isn’t it? I’m looking forward to that one because the whole series so far has been an absolute hoot.

In fact, this list has a lot of books I’m really looking forward to, not just those Dragons but also An Artful Dodge, Fool, Life or Death, and of course the next Harmony book, Enter the Nightmare.

What are you looking forward to reading in your stack this weekend?