Annie got dumped & needed a fresh start. Looking for jobs outside of NYC to match her minuscule budget, she finds a job in a small town upstate. Soon after arriving, she meets Sophie, a charismatic figure, Annie can‘t help to be drawn to her, even though the townspeople seem to fear her.

Annie is such a sad sack through most of the book & the codependent relationship the women form is unsettling. And Annie‘s confidence just makes her an asshole.

I don‘t even know what to say about this one.

It was very interesting learning about the Marys Wollstonecraft & Shelley, but I spent most of the sizable book absolutely enraged at all of the men and most of the women who surrounded the Marys. Which also made me think that most of the authors involved in the Romantics movement were trash people.

The book itself was well written but I was so happy for it to be over.

In a world where most wizards only have magic over a small part of life, 14-year-old Mona is a bakery wizard. She can encourage biscuits to be soft, bread to not burn, & gingerbread men to stand up & dance.

When Mona discovers a dead girl in her kitchen and wizards start disappearing across the city, she reluctantly leads the fight against corruption in the government.

Never thought I‘d sob over bread golems & a skeleton horse but here we are.

Just in time for the 50th anniversary, The Gales of November gives a brief history of shipping in the Great Lakes region, talks about many of the crew of the Fitz and their families, and how the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald changed shipping forever.

An incredible book. As a midwesterner, I learned so much more about the Great Lakes and this legendary ship than I ever knew.

Starting the day that President Joe Biden announces he is not running for a second term, VP Kamala Harris takes the reader through probably the most historic presidential campaigns in history.
I listened to it during a particularly rough patch with the current administration so it was a bit like pouring salt in the wound, but it was interesting to learn what it took for Harris & her team to take a campaign from 0 to 100 in no time.

Maus pt. 2 is about Vladek‘s time in the concentration camps and what he did to survive until he was freed. It also offers a bigger look at how the Holocaust affected the rest of Vladek‘s life and how the author has struggled to come to terms learning about his parents‘ experiences and how that has directly affected his life.

When Daphne‘s fiancé dumps her for his long-time bestie, Petra, she‘s stuck in his hometown with no friends, family, or a place to live. One crazy idea later, Daphne is now roommates with Miles, Petra‘s ex.
While she loves her job, Daphne needs to leave town but Miles convinces her to let him show her the real Waning Bay & the pair grow closer as the summer comes to an end.

I was pretty meh about Henry‘s last book but I really enjoyed this one.

This book has been on my TBR for a long time but I had to bail after just 2 hours. It was so depressing.
I might try to circle back to it but can‘t for now.

The Problem with Pixies by Kat Healy first in the Homesteader Hearth series

Misty Meadows is a witch on the run. She finds out her family‘s grimoire is cursed so she steals it and flees to a small town in Indiana with the plan to stay hidden until she can end the curse. Here, she works on revitalizing an old farm house, making nice with the local fairy population, and not thinking about the hot shifter lumberjack.

17-year-old Sorel doesn‘t want to get married, so the night before her wedding, she makes a run for it. She dresses as a man & travels to the nearest town, giving her name as Isser Jacobs but, unknown to her, Isser Jacobs is a real person & he is involved in some questionable dealings.
Sorel finds a few people she can trust & together they try to figure out what‘s going on, & earn the attention of powerful beings while they‘re at it.

Maus pt. 1 tells the true story of the author‘s father, Vladek‘s, life in Poland as Hitler rose to power. In it, we see Vladek meeting his wife, running several successful businesses, and fleeing the Nazi forces as they began rounding up Jews.
We also see the conversations between the author and his father as he learns about his parent‘s past and tries to come to terms with it.

Final book in the Last Binding trilogy has Lord Hawthorn & Alan teaming up with Violet, Edwin, Robin, & Maud as they hunt for the final piece of the Last Contract & struggle to stay a step ahead of the magicians who want it.
Meanwhile, Alan continues the fight to keep his family afloat and Lord Hawthorn is forced to face the loss of his sister and the implosion of his own family.

Enemies to lovers, lots of intrigue, and edge-of-your-seat action.

Angrboda is punished with triple burnings for not sharing her knowledge with Odin but she manages to escape & flees to the remote woods. There, she meets Loki, they fall in love & have three children but they are the harbingers of Ragnarok.

I wanted to like it but Angrboda is so passive for most of the book, just letting things happen around and to her. So much of the story was about how powerful she was but she never did anything with her power.

A therapist, a nurse, a union leader, and a spy, all retired, team up to solve cold cases. When the owner of their retirement community is found dead, they‘re on the case, much to the chagrin of the police.

Things heat up when more bodies are found and the TMC teams up with the police to find the killer.

Fun read that‘s full of delightful characters and unexpected twists.

Sophie is the oldest daughter destined for a life of obscurity & bad luck. When a witch curses her with old age, she goes the only place she can think of to escape her fate.
Howl is the dramatic, mysterious wizard with the bad reputation in the moving castle on the hill. What the people don‘t know is he‘s more interested in seducing the local girls than he is in knowing what he‘s doing.
Sophie plans to set him straight.

Funny, ridiculous, & cozy.

After the modern world ended, the remaining humans formed new societies in five habitable zones across the globe. Luca Juniper lives in the Oasis at the base of the Rockies, a new utopia totally run by an AI called the Machine but terrorist group, Lumos, wants to end it all.

Interesting story but it needed some serious editing and I‘m not sure novella was the right format because it needed more world and character building.

It‘s like an early 20th Century Jewish Good Omens but the Angel and Demon leave Poland to find a girl from their town who has gone missing in America. On the crossing, they adopt (or are adopted by) Rose, a teen from a neighboring town looking for the American Dream and running from the girl she loves.

It feels like Good Omens but the stupidity has more of an Our Flag Means Death vibe in the best, most delightful way.

When the current state of the world gets you down, you hit your local bookstore and get different worlds to escape into. #bookhaul

Dymitr and Ala head to Dymitr‘s family home in Poland both for a funeral and to find something to pay Baba Jaga back for her help. There, they cross paths with Niko who is in town for his own mission: kill one of the most dangerous Knights alive.

Such an amazing sequel to When Among Crows, I cannot wait to see where Roth takes this trio next.

Na zdrowie!

Dawson covers the life of Edward Oscar Heinrich, the man responsible for developing many of the techniques and procedures that modern forensic science is built on. From a dead show girl to a murdered wife to a missing priest, Heinrich‘s life was shaped by the cases he worked on and the answers he sought.

Human Sebastian is a grad student on the Evocation track in college. His academic rival half-Elf Elethior is on the Conjuration track. When they‘re both chosen to work together on a grant project, neither of them expected to get along let alone start to like each other.

My new favorite Sara Raasch book. It‘s funny and a bit less camp than her Royals and Romance series.

Sally is the type-A sister who kept the house running from a young age. Gillian is a free-spirited and selfish sister who is fast to love and fast to move on. When Gillian‘s life hits a huge speed bump, she turns to her sister to clean up the mess, with mixed results.

I wanted to love it because I love the movie but I failed to find any of the charm and sisterly bond that was the core of the movie. Plus, a surprising lack of actual magic.

Terlu broke the law and was turned into a statue as punishment so it was quite a surprise when she woke up in a snowy forest six years later.
Terlu was sent to the island of Belde, home of an enchanted greenhouse that is failing and the gardener who hopes she can save it.
So cozy and sweet, with a found family of sentient plants and learning that you are worth sticking around for.

Told as the last letter from Mata Hari, it covers her childhood, her ill-fated marriage, then her life of freedom in Paris. When war loomed, her shift from entertainer & courtesan to double agent lead to her downfall.
While interesting, I didn‘t like the tone of the book. Her side was very matter-of-fact with little emotion or deeper insight into her character. The most sympathetic part of the book was the letter the lawyer wrote at the end.

Sibling Dex needed a change in their life so they left the monastery & took up the life of a traveling tea monk. After a few years, they needed another change & leave the designated human zone into the wild. They were not expecting to meet Mosscap, a robot who has decided to survey humans and find out what they need. The pair travel to a long-abandoned monastery and learn about each other and the world they didn‘t know.
Cozy and thought-provoking.

Jimmy “Prop” Propfield joined the army with his best friends Billy & Hank to get out of his hometown and to forget his first love. Unfortunately, that found him in the Philippines on the eve of Pearl Harbor.
The three friends soon find themselves taken captive and forced onto the Bataan Death March and into a POW camp. They spend the next few years just trying to survive the camp, heavy labor, a prisoner ship, and torture.
Good but heartbreaking.

Paranormal noir mystery set in prohibition Chicago sees magical detective Helen Brandt take one last job, to find the White City Vampire, before the demon who owns her soul comes to collect.
It doesn‘t take long for her to realize she is far more connected to her quarry than she thought, as is her employer, her brother, and the woman she loves.

Quick read but oh so good.

And because I think everybody deserves to see the alternate cover featuring Jester and Fjord as Guinevere and Oskar.

Starting as a one-off comment during Critical Role‘s second campaign that quickly turned into a series-long running gag, Guanzon turned Tusk Love into a funny, sweet, spicier-than-I-expected romance between a merchant‘s daughter and a half-orc blacksmith as they cross the continent to return her to her parents and her fiancé.

Maud Blyth is on a mission to help her brother save the magical world but things go wrong almost immediately when the old woman she is escorting across the Atlantic is murdered.
Maude recruits help from magician and stage performer Violet Debenhan, former magician Lord Hawthorn, and journalist Alan Ross to find the second piece of the last contract and discover the murderer all before the ship docks in England.

As a brand new posh resort opens in an old manor house, the past rises up to crash the festivities to the ground. Part Midsommer, part Hot Fuzz, the twists keep twisting.

Told from four POVs: Francesca-the owner, Owen-her husband, Bella-a mystery guest, and Eddie-kitchen employee, the story flips between past, present, and future (in the POV of a detective) as they try to solve a disappearance without rousting the anger of the mysterious Birds.

When Benny helps build a mysterious tank, he‘s offered a job at a Coney Island amusement park, he just has to help capture the creature to go into the tank. Nothing prepared for it to be a merman.

Benny does what he can to make life more tolerable for the merman, eventually forming a friendship that developed into deeper feelings.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read, physically (the author also illustrated it) and the story.

Annabelle wakes up in a river and is adopted by a strange group of teens who live in the ghost town on top of Resurrection Peak. She can‘t remember what led to her ending up in the river but she returns to her life with the mission of finding out.

It was frustrating watching Annie miss all the signs that she was dead for so long, not to mention the multiple potholes, and how horribly she treated Sam.

I really wanted to like it but it didn‘t blow me away. And I think that‘s all on me.

It was written really well & the characters were three dimensional and unique, but I can‘t help but feel that I would‘ve liked it better if it was just from Altha‘s POV.

Either way, I‘m glad to have read it. I really enjoyed Altha‘s storyline & it was interesting to see the hedgewitchyness of each woman manifest in different ways.

Hannah‘s cancer diagnosis was fatal so she decided to go out on her terms. She picked a date and started planning the best end-of-life rager her retirement community has ever seen.
Told in segments from the day of her party with flashbacks to her childhood in Montreal, starting a company with her best friend, and her time with the one who got away.

Funny, bittersweet, and queer set in a world ravaged by the effects of climate change.

To deal with the rise in misogynistic violence, the government shipped the offenders to an island to fend for themselves. Five years later, NB Mankiller Jones is sent in to retrieve classified information that was stored on the island. Things turn violent almost immediately in the most ridiculous ways possible as Mankiller dodges cultists, cannibals, and the “nice guys.”

Definitely a WTF read but fun nonetheless.

Jamie sets off on a cross-country road-trip with her boyfriend, cat, and dog to try the iconic hot dog offerings in the south, the East coast, and a quick jaunt into the Midwest.
She also covers the history of everybody‘s favorite tubed meat and its rise in popularity in addition to its current role in American culture. Dealing with the Covid pandemic and personal trials adds a personal touch to the book.

Taking place after Artificial Condition, we see ART and its crew investigating a corporate station. Meanwhile Iris tries to get to the bottom of ART‘s new friend and just what its feelings for them are.

What happens when your dnd party is TPK‘d but there‘s still a job to do? The NPCs who find your bodies take on your quest.
Four nobodies from Maplebark adopt the adventuring parties roles of rogue, barbarian, wizard, and cleric to prevent the temperamental king from destroying their town, but their lack of adventuring experience actually helps them succeed.

Such a fun, light read for dnd and fantasy nerds.

Every D&D party ever 🤣

Charlie is in a really shitty place in life when he hears his super wealthy, estranged uncle died. Then, his uncle‘s assistant shows up on his doorstep to ask him to host the funeral.
This sets off a series of events that Charlie could never imagine including spy cats, guard dolphins in the middle of a labor dispute, and a secret society of villains who all know his name.

Audiobooks narrated by Wil Wheaton are always a yes for me.

Based on The Adventure Zone podcast, the McElroy brothers learn how to play Dungeons & Dragons with hilarious results.
In the first installment of the series, fighter Magnus, wizard Taako, and cleric Merle are on the mission to deliver goods and rescue Merle‘s cousins but cause a whole bunch of damage as they murder-hobo their way through the countryside.

Jules is still trying to bounce back from her horrible breakup and broken engagement so when awkward Will, her neighbor‘s college friend, admits he needs help finding a wife, she thinks he‘s the safe choice to practice with to help her prepare to start dating again.

Neither of them anticipated being perfect for each other.

It wasn‘t bad but it felt kind of anticlimactic. Christopher still gives me the ick.

The 6th level takes the crawlers to the Hunting Grounds, where the universe‘s wealthiest families and organizations can send members to kill crawlers with abandon.
But they‘ve never met Carl before. He makes it his personal mission to kill as many hunters as possible, which paints an even bigger target on his back and makes things uncomfortable when crawlers and hunters meet at the Butcher‘s Masquerade right before the floor collapses.

A look at the funny side of death including historic funerary practices, unhinged obituaries, unusual funerals, and out-of-pocket deathbed confessions.
If you‘re a fan of Caitlin Doughty, you‘ll enjoy this book.

A reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from Jim‘s point of view, it brings to the forefront how enslaved people were treated in the pre-Civil War era south.
When Jim finds out he‘s to be sold, he runs away. After a series of encounters with strangers (some good, most bad), he returns home just to find out his family had been sold. This changes his mission from escape to rescue.

Everybody should read it at least once.

The queen of crime takes the closed door murder mystery to a whole new level when all nine people trapped on an island are found dead, all from different methods and at different times.

Even with the explanation, I‘m still not 100% sure I know what happened. Absolutely masterful.

Stein traveled around the world to document the last keepers of traditional crafts and knowledge. From the last 19 people who know how to make sacred mirrors in India, to the 3 women who make the most intricate pasta ever in Sardinia, to the handful of people who keep their bees informed of family events. Sadly, the craft may be lost in the next generations but the fact they existed will be saved.

An absolutely incredible book! I learned so much.

Michelle‘s mother always had the highest expectations of her and it often caused tension between them but the one thing they always bonded over was food.
When her mom was diagnosed with cancer, it changed Michelle‘s relationship with nearly everybody in her life and with food. When her mom passed, it forced her to find a new path for herself and come to terms with her relationship with her mom.

Read with tissues.

Amazing fairytale about two sisters whose bond is so strong that they are still connected even beyond death.
The magic in their music keeps the willows alive that guard the portal to the realm of the Fairies and brought one sister love. Their music would bring them together again and supply justice.

Definitely listen to the audiobook. The narrator has a wonderful singing voice supported by the author and her own sister on harp and flute.