THE LIBRARY GAME, bookish cozy mystery among a pack of good friends

THE LIBRARY GAME
GIGI PANDIAN
Minotaur Books
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In The Library Game, Tempest Raj and Secret Staircase Construction are renovating a classic detective fiction library that just got its first real-life mystery.

Tempest Raj couldn’t be happier that the family business, Secret Staircase Construction, is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Known for enchanting architectural features like sliding bookshelves and secret passageways, the company is now taking on a dream project: transforming a home into a public library that celebrates history's greatest fictional detectives.

Though the work is far from done, Gray House Library’s new owner is eager to host a murder mystery dinner and literary themed escape room. But when a rehearsal ends with an actor murdered and the body vanishes, Tempest is witness to a seemingly impossible crime. Fueled by her grandfather’s Scottish and Indian meals, Tempest and the rest of the crew must figure out who is making beloved classic mystery plots come to life in a deadly game.

Multiple award winning author Gigi Pandian masterfully weaves wit and warmth in the Secret Staircase Mysteries. Readers will delight in the surprises Secret Staircase Construction uncovers behind the next locked door.

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My Review: As someone for whom this:

...represents the apotheosis of all my life's desires, this book and series could be written solely for me. Add in Tempest's history as an illusionist of renown on the stages of Las Vegas, and I'm deeper into infatuation.

As this entry in the series is not set in the same place, or with the same precise cast, as previous ones (which I have not read), and I'm at the proper starting place, though it must be said that there are a lot of relationships that aren't formed in this book. Be prepared to infer a lot from the offhanded remarks of the cast if you're starting here, but it's really not onerous. The story Author Pandian tells us here is a very cozy one...you know, dead bodies and suchlike goins-on, but no gore and precious little that could even be considered violence in the world we live in...and a murder whose most chilling aspect is how it ties in to a bookish social community's attempts to fix up a person's home library for a destination vacation spot, plus lots of good food descriptions and a recipe or two— however can I resist?

Small things detract from perfection, like the way Tempest jumps to an absolutely wrong conclusion at one point and it's simply never dealt with, but we're not here for the locked-room puzzle. This is a relationship-driven book, one with kind, good people who really care for each other and for books and food and community. The reveal of the guilty party came as no surprise to me, experienced mystery reader that I am, mostly because I knew none of the people involved and was thus not distracted by the intended red herrings.

The presence of pet bunny Abracadabra, and a pivotal character called Mrs. Hudson, made this feel very Golden-Age mystery. While I think it's lots of fun to read, I don't see myself getting books one through three to catch up. The issue with cozies for me is I need some kind of alchemical falling-in-love moment or they become rather like TV shows. I felt here as though I could easily watch this crew doing their thing on Acorn or Britbox and love it. On the page I liked it fine, but not quite enough to get to four stars.

SOUR CHERRY, feminist retelling of the folktale Bluebeard...only with empathy

SOUR CHERRY
NATALIA THEODORIDOU
Tin House Books
$9.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A stunning reimagining of Bluebeard—one of the most mythologized serial killers—twisted into a modern tale of toxic masculinity, a feminist sermon, and a folktale for the twenty-first century.

The tale begins with Agnes. After losing her baby, Agnes is called to the great manor house to nurse the local lord’s baby boy. But something is wrong with the child: his nails grow too fast, his skin smells of soil, and his eyes remind her of the dark forest. As he grows into a boy, then into man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Trees wither at the roots, fruits rot on their branches, and the town turns against him. The man takes a wife, who bears him a son. But tragedy strikes in cycles and his family is forced to consider their own malignancy—until wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. The ghosts become a chorus, and they call urgently to our narrator as she tries to explain, in our very real world, exactly what has happened to her. The ghosts can all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin: If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.

Natalia Theodoridou’s haunting and unforgettable debut novel, Sour Cherry, confronts age-old systems of gender and power, long-held excuses made for bad men, and the complicated reasons we stay captive to the monsters we love.

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My Review: Retelling "Bluebeard," one of the most unsettling folk tales I've ever encountered, was a shoo-in to get my admiring attention for this novelist's debut effort. At about the 45% mark, the scene under the cherry tree, I found the time jumping wearing me down...no particular effect was, in my observation, intended for these shifts. They do not seem coupled to changes in emotional register, or attached to revelations of characters' understandings of themselves or each other. Instead they felt to me like ways to avoid exploring an important shift in something because after the time shift the event shifted from is dealt with in short and sharp explanation..."after that Tristan looked at his hand a lot"...without much depth. As this story explores the fear and the disappointment that must inevitably accompany truly loving another person, that matters. The ending was, as a result of this ongoing issue, a bit anticlimactic.

The plus side is that this is a retelling of a quite brutal tale that tries hard to be in the main character's corner. Something that gives kids like me nightmares is brought into the realm of reason. It's very empathetic, it's very willing to engage the readers' empathy. This makes the awfulness all the more poignant and impactful, and is the source of all my positive feelings for the book. It grapples with the deep, oceanic sadness of loving someone who is haunted by an awful past, whose emotional tides do not stop at the shores between himself and the world. It brings a lovingkindness to the seemingly cursed eternal outsider, yet doesn't play the victim card for the monster or the lover.

Craft quibbles aside, I found this story quite engrossing or I'd've simply Pearl-Ruled it. I haven't raised the thematic elements of horror to content-warning status because, frankly, if you need CWs on ancient folktales you won't consider the read for more than a split second anyway.

A debut novel that portends a career of fascinating work. I already want to read Author Theodoridou's next book.

SAD TIGER, French-Mexican author NEIGE SINNO begins a society-wide conversation

SAD TIGER
NEIGE SINNO (tr. Natasha Lehrer)
Seven Stories Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$12.99 ebook, available now

Rating: ???

The Publisher Says: Winner of multiple prizes, Neige Sinno has created a powerful literary form with Sad Tiger, a book that took France by storm and is an international phenomenon.

Sad Tiger is built on the facts of a series of devastating events. Neige Sinno was seven years old when her stepfather started sexually abusing her. At 19, she decided to break the silence that is so common in all cultures around sexual violence. This led to a public trial and prison for her stepfather and Sinno started a new life in Mexico.

Through the construction of a fragmented narrative, Sinno explores the different facets of memory—her own, her mother’s, as well as her abusive stepfather’s; and of abuse itself in all its monstrosity and banality. Her account is woven together with a close reading of literary works by Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Christine Angot, and Virginie Despentes among others.

Sad Tiger—the title inspired by William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”—is a literary exploration into how to speak about the unspeakable. In this extraordinary book there is an abiding concern: how to protect others from what the author herself endured? In the midst of so much darkness, an answer reads crystal clear: by speaking up and asking questions. A striking, shocking, and necessary masterpiece.

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My Review: Reading this story was hellish. Like Sinno, I was sexually abused and gaslighted...by my mother. Her actions to isolate me, to define reality and acceptability and maintain her power over me were appalling. Adult me, in his sixties, has never had a moment of life without this disgusting stain leaching through every act, thought, relationship; it is impossible to describe the utter life-changing (blighting, really) miasma the incest survivor exists under. Again like Sinno, I started a new life far away...in New York, not *quite* as far as Mexico is from France.

Like Sinno, I experienced the isolation of the victim in the cage of silence...doubled by the fact that I'm male, and my abuser female. In an incest-survivors' group I sought out (at my stepmother's urging, she knew the signs from experience) in 1980s New York City, the women who greeted me with great hostility for simply being male also accused me of lying..."no woman would do that!"...so more years were lost to silent rage and pain.

I think it's very telling that #MeToo never included incest survivors in its public faces. Sinno relates the probable reasons in a section she calls "Reasons for not wanting to write this book," all of which made me nod along.

Like Sinno, people I told about my mother's rape of me were appalled...and immediately wondered what made my mother do this awful thing (her father did it to her, her older brother told me). No one ever seemed to think much about how I was handling my emotional responses. I learned, not for the first time, that women do not want to talk about feelings and emotions OF men, only about theirs AT men. Listen to me complain but don't say a word about yourself, you self-centered abuser. This is a paraphrase, but it is a valid one.

Decades of therapy later, I view everything connected to incest very differently than I did while women were emotionally abusing or simply ignoring my scarred, scared trauma survivorhood. It became second nature to deflect or avoid emotional contact with any others, especially women. Friends kept at a distance, lovers reduced to objects...all of this is part of my incest survival strategy. Sinno and her book could, if the culture allows it and if those of us who know the costs of silence speak in support of it, make a substantive change for the better in later survivors' experiences.

This is me speaking in support of this necessary, awful read. Most especially for those who say "it's horrifying, I can't read that" to themselves or out loud.

Your failure of empathy speaks louder than any words.

A CARNIVAL OF ATROCITIES, things going wrong? blame a woman!

A CARNIVAL OF ATROCITIES
NATALIA CARCÍA FREIRE (tr. Victor Meadowcroft)
World Editions
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: The residents of a desolate town nestled in the Ecuadorian Andes are forced to reckon with the legend of Mildred, a girl wronged by the town years ago

Cocuán, a desolate town nestled between the hot jungle and the frigid Andes, is about to slip away from memory. This is where Mildred was born, and where everything she had—her animals, her home, her lands—was taken from her after her mother’s death. Years later, a series of strange events, disappearances, and outbursts of collective delirium will force its residents to reckon with the legend of old Mildred. Once again, they will feel the shadow of death that has hung over the town ever since she was wronged. The voices of nine characters—Mildred, Ezequiel, Agustina, Manzi, Carmen, Víctor, Baltasar, Hermosina, and Filatelio—tell us of the past and present of that doomed place and Mildred's fate.

Natalia García Freire’s vivid language blurs the lines between dreams and reality and transports the reader to the hypnotic Andean universe of Ecuador.

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My Review: Nine PoVs in under 160pp. Why is my rating even a speck over 3 stars?

Mildred.

How perfect that her memory is, not celebrated exactly, but very much incorporated into the life of the town she was Othered, abused, and abandoned by in life. She never once left the midrange of the townsfolk's memories. Funny about that, since all she ever got was a grudging corner in life. Now Cocuán, never a place that loomed large on the world's stage (or even Ecuador's), is slowly and steadily vanishing. It's an unnerving process to read about. The place is, under the pressure of shared guilt, Brigadooning itself as monsters (real? psychic?) claim all of Cocuán.

Told in the kind of prose that I'm reluctant to call "dreamlike" because that means all y'all will click away in search of meatier fare, it's akin to a folktale. A kind of Silver John the Balladeer reading experience. The nine (9) PoVs all expand, like in the Appalachian folktales I've referenced, the reach of Mildred's...presence? ghost? transitional object-iveness?...serves to illuminate the magic in magical realism. She (please attend to pronoun) is killing the place that killed her by causing (how?) the trauma they inflicted on her to make itself manifest in themselves. Revenge? Whose, and on whom?

It is as easy to see Mildred as Silver John the Balladeer's rejected suitor Evadare, pining unto death for what she is denied in life, as it is to see her as John the competent and potent restorer of ma'at to the town. It's a role that folktales love, the bringer of justice and balance who is not quite of this world, but was, and still cares about it.

As easily as that more esoteric take I can defend this story as a restoration of justice for a victim of cultural misogyny, whose maltreatment and displacement by the town was so deeply unjust that it haunts each perpetrator or passive unsavior unto death. The town's vanishing because their collective responsibility to a woman seeking only to exercise the rights they all demand to life and liberty signally failed. They project onto the space called Mildred all the consequences of their failings as women have always endured. Every bad thing is someone else's fault, never one's own. Othering and blaming Mildred for the forces shutting down their town gives Cocuán double psychic relief: exoneration for how they treated her, and an explanation for the advancing death rattles of Cocuán.

Plus it's got cool monstrous doins!

Real or fantasy, Mildred and Cocuán and their wildly entangled realities, as the author and the translator have thrown into relief with words of the most precisely calculated illumination, get all five stars from me.

HEARTWOOD: A Novel, A Read with Jenna Pick, takes us with three very strong women to resolutions they did not expect

HEARTWOOD: A Novel (A Read with Jenna Pick)
AMITY GAIGE
Simon & Schuster
$14.99 ebook, available 1 April 2025

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.

At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.

Heartwood is a “gem of a thousand facets—suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending,” (Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning) that tells the story of a lost hiker’s odyssey and is a moving rendering of each character’s interior journey. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found. At its core, Heartwood is a redemptive novel, written with both enormous literary ambition and love.

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My Review: What I liked about this read, which on its face is not one I would resonate positively with, is that we're not in doubt about Valerie's disappearance. We're reading her letters to her mom as the search for her unfolds. And yet it's a suspense novel...so how does Amity Gaige pull that off?

Deftly.

Honestly I'm still allergic to the Cult of Mother stuff...you'll have noticed an absence of any part of a fifth star...but the beautiful nature descriptions and the bleeding honesty of the toll that living in times celebrating dehumanizing "values" earned all four the story remaining stars. Leaving out the mother-daughter mealymouthing would've earned at least another half, just for Valerie's impressive if misused commitment to helping. Everyone, except herself...and how'd that little poison pill get in there. We do see that realization come to her. Her early-story-days burnout from nursing nursing nursing during COVID's worst passage means she's in need of time to process and consolidate her new emotional world...that won't include the husband she does't love anymore, but who is her logistical support on this trip....

Beverly the Maine warden tasked with finding Valerie before her week's-worth of supplies runs out is, well, standard. She's a salty salt-of-the-earth supercompetent woman who throws herself into a job she's damned good at...to avoid dealing with her mother's steady decline into death. It's not like this is a groundbreaking idea. It is, however, very relatable; Beverly is rewarded and praised for the good work she does when other work must be neglected to do it. Work she does not want to do. "Women's work." Caring for her mother is...just too hard, given the older woman's dereliction of care for her, and effective devolution of care for Bev's sisters onto her too-young shoulders. Finding strangers who are a lot less competent than she is? Easy; and very much needed in the huge spaces that Maine has never "developed."

Lena is retired, lives a dull life of nothing much except chatting about birds to an unknown-in-meatspace mystery soul after her "useful" existence is done with her. She's sharp; she's savvy; she's got online skills that enable her to help Valerie and Beverly; so she does. I liked her best...I am her, I guess that won't surprise anyone that I think she's a good'un. She's estranged from her only child; she's difficult and spiky; and still can't resist doing something useful in despite of her physical disability. Yup. Thass me. The style of storytelling allows one to follow the developments, even Lena's, in the story's real time. It really worked on me.

How it all fits together is the fun of the read. I won't spoiler it because I am boot-quakingly afraid of the Spoiler Stasi. I'll say that misdirection я Amity. I had a firm opinion about where this was going and, when it got to the Big Reveal, I was correct. It gave me a lovely warm glow of satisfaction.

What makes this good Book Club Fiction™ is this mélange of traits, but most especially the dull mother-daughter conflicts. My own mother was awful; I do my goddamnedest to think around and past her gargoyle-statue-shaped lump in my head. But I've had decades of therapy and most of y'all ain't, so stories told about this feel better to you. I think Jenna Bush Hager picked a great iteration of the undistinguished, indistinguishable mass of Book Club Fiction™ to show y'all.

Buy one to say thank you to a talented author with her finger on The Pulse℠, and a celeb who's Book Club Fiction™ taste is solidly on the side of craft mastery instead of glam glitz and suchlike gubbins.

Not at all mad I read it.

March 2025's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews This review will appear in my blog's end-of-month roundup on 30 March 2025.

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Newly minted child psychologist Mina has little experience. In a field where the first people called are experts, she’s been unable to get her feet wet. Instead she aimlessly spends her days stuck in the stifling heat wave sweeping across Britain and anxiously contemplates her upcoming marriage to careful, precise researcher Oscar. The only reprieve from her small, close world is attending the local bereavement group to mourn her brother’s death from years ago.

Then she meets journalist Sam Hunter at the grief group one day, and he has a proposition for her: Thirteen-year-old Alice Webber claims a witch is haunting her. Living with her family in the remote village of Banathel, Alice finds her symptoms are getting increasingly disturbing. Taking this job will give Mina some experience and much-needed money; Sam will get the scoop of a lifetime; and Alice will get better—Mina is sure of it.

But instead of improving, Alice’s behavior becomes inexplicable and intense. The town of Banathel has a deep history of superstition and witchcraft. They believe there is evil in the world. They believe there are ways of…dealing with it. And they don’t expect outsiders to understand.

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My Review: Psychological horror/thriller novels really do scare me. This one, in a lot of ways, was scary; its only issue for full, effective scare factor in my eyes is the journalist/tyro child psychologist tie-up. I'm really oversensitive to that kind of cruel, manipulative relationship, having been abused by jesus freaks with the truly horrific tale of god and the devil making a bar-bet that Job wouldn't buckle under extreme psychological torture. It didn't help that the male journalist scraped her acquaintance in a group for grieving loss sufferers, a true predator move.

For those reasons I could never get all the way into the story, hence my seemingly ungenerous rating. It *is* effective in its creation of a spooky atmosphere, with icksome details and sensory evocations. Lots of body horror that feels very...bodily...so squeamish souls are duly cautioned. Effectively claustrophobic, emotionally sharp-edged horror read that has some serious flaws.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Amazon link) wants $14.99 for an ebook. I say it's a good library borrow.

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A Brazen Curiosity: A Regency Cozy by Lynn Messina (Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries Book 1)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Nothing ruins a lovely house party like bloody murder.

At the decrepit old age of six-and-twenty, Miss Beatrice Hyde-Clare has virtually no hope of landing a husband. An orphan living off her relatives' charity, her job is to sit with her needlework and to keep her thoughts to herself.

When Bea receives an invitation to an elegant country party, she intends to do just that. Not even the presence of the aggravatingly handsome Duke of Kesgrave could lead this young lady to scandal. True, she might wish to pour her bowl of turtle soup on his aristocratic head—however, she would never actually do it. But a lady can fantasize.

But, when she stumbles upon the dead body of another houseguest, all Bea's good intentions fly out the well-appointed window. Although the magistrate declares it a suicide, she knows better.

Time for some very unladylike behavior.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME LENDING SERVICE. USE THEM OFTEN, THEY PAY AUTHORS FOR OUR USE.

My Review: OLD?! TWENTY-SIX WAS OLD?! I reject this notion whole and entire! I don't reject the series, however, as Beatrice is another anachronistic Regency heroine who does not "know her place" which will always get my attention, as someone who has never known his place either.

I don't rate it more highly because it has other anachronistic touches I found less amusing, eg "The difference between who she perceived herself to be and who she actually was was vast, and if she had any fight left in her, she would resent how easily she’d succumbed to everyone’s low expectations, including her own," very much a twenty-first century kind of a thought. Still well worth your time and treasure if you need a pleasant diversion.

Kindle edition's $2.99. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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A Scandalous Deception: A Regency Cozy by Lynn Messina (Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries Book 2)

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: As much as Beatrice Hyde-Clare relished the challenge of figuring out who murdered a fellow guest during a house party in the Lake District, she certainly does not consider herself an amateur investigator.

So when a London dandy falls dead at her feet in the entryway of a London Daily Gazette, she feels no compulsion to investigate. It was a newspaper office, after all, and reporters are already on the case as are the authorities. She has her own problems to deal with anyway—such as extricating herself from a seemingly harmless little fib that has somehow grown into a ridiculously large fiction.

Truly, she has no interest at all.

Except the dagger that killed the poor earl seemed disconcertingly familiar… And so Bea is off to the British Museum because she cannot rest until she confirms her suspicion, while trying to allay her family’s concerns and comprehend the Duke of Kesgrave’s compulsion.

For the handsome lord has no reason to waste his time solving a mystery alongside a shy spinster. And yet he turns up everywhere she goes.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME LENDING SERVICE. USE THEM OFTEN, THEY PAY AUTHORS FOR OUR USE.

My Review: I'm increasingly uncomfortable with Beatrice's facile, foolish, ill-considered lying as a source of plot momentum. It's as squicky a trait as it was to me in I Love Lucy when I was a kid. The lies are so silly, too.

That said I got solid laughs between brow-furrowings. Value delivered, even if in mitigated form.

Kindle edition's $3.49. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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A Pernicious Fabrication: A Regency Cozy by Lynn Messina (Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries Book 13)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, will not do the bidding of Hell and Fury Hawes. It does not matter how difficult it is to find new murder mysteries to investigate, especially ones where the victim was stabbed with a chisel. She absolutely refuses to lift a finger to help him figure out who killed one of his associates.

Nothing will persuade her, not even discovering the identity of the victim.

It is the duke’s cousin, son of the wretched Lord Myles, who also met an ugly death—bludgeoned with a candlestick—after going into business with the infamous crime lord, who rules over the worst rookery in London. Mortimer Matlock, a thwarted artist who stopped sculpting after his work was rejected repeatedly by the Royal Academy, was forging artifacts for Hawes’s illegal antiquities scheme.

Joining forces with the King of Saffron Hill, it seems, is frequently fatal.

That is an unfortunate development, then, for Bea, whose husband is determined to find out who slayed his relative. The duke shares her distrust of Hawes, whose avowals of just wanting justice for the fallen man ring hollow to him too. He believes there is more to the situation than meets the eye.

Well, obviously, yes, thinks Bea, who is unable to smother her misgivings.

Surely, they’re walking into a trap.

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My Review: Entertaining. The art-forgery and antiquities-smuggling aspects are what drew me in initially, and while these plot points drive the story they aren't the focus (if you see what I mean) as much as the web woven by and for the Duchess. It's book thirteen in a series, so good lawsy me have I missed a lot.

I'm not sure I'll go get three through twelve. Don't start here, but if like me you're a fan of Regency-set stuff, pick up book one. I enjoyed it more than this one; most likely because I missed so much in the middle.

The Kindle edition's $6.99. (non-affiliate Amazon link)

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Cabinet of Curiosities: A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre by Aaron Mahnke

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: The new book based on the long-running hit podcast by Aaron Mahnke, which has translated into over 120-million downloads to date, and a monthly average of over 2 million listeners.

The podcast, Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities, has delighted millions of listeners for years with tales of the wonderful, astounding, and downright bizarre people, places, and things throughout history. Now, in Cabinet of Curiosities the book, learn the fascinating story of the invention of the croissant in a country that was not France, and relive the adventures of a dog that stowed away and went to war, only to help capture a German spy. Along the way, readers will pass through the American state of Franklin, watch Abraham Lincoln’s son be rescued by his assassin’s brother, and learn how too many crash landings inspired one pilot to leave the airline industry and trek for the stars.

For the first time ever, Aaron has gathered scores of his favorites in print, and curated them into a beautiful, topical collection for devoted followers and new fans alike.

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My Review: Fun trivia book. I don't listen to Mahnke's podcast but this definitely makes me understand why people do, with his engaging, personable affect, and the combination of infotainment and attractive design.

Sourced anecdotes largely point you to Wikipedia, some are not *quite* as presented here (lookin' at you Saqqara-bird story) but honestly...you'd buy this as a giftie for the nibling who's a Jeopardy!-watcher and they'd enjoy debunking the stuff as much as anything.

St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Amazon link) requests $14.99 for an ebook.

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The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica (tr. Sarah Moses)

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.

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My Review: Seemingly alone among readers, I did not like Tender Is the Flesh because its conceit was simply too absurd for me. I was unable take it seriously enough to get into the real story. Not at all the issue with this top-flight idea. "The Enlightened" are so very of the moment, and so perfectly limned as the abuser tech bros and Aynholes they're...parodying? illuminating in 3D, certainly. By gender-flipping the baddies, Author Bazterrica bypasses facile dismissive male critics' inevitable sexist dismissals of the story's, um, Gothic excesses. She's also thereby making a powerful point about women and their missing solidarity. The (female) abusers rise to the top, thereby to use their power in pointlessly sadistic rituals of pain and humiliation.

Hence my lower-than-expected rating. I do not wish to examine women in any remotely sexual light. It's metaphorical here, granted; I still do not enjoy it; so not-quite-four is my rating of a solid five-star story. YMMV, of course, and I very much hope it will.

Scribner (non-affiliate Amazon link) will say "$13.99 please" at checkout.

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Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A joyfully unhinged story of money, marriage, sex, and revenge unspools when a billionaire crashes his hot air balloon into the middle of a post-pandemic first date.

Joannie hasn’t been on a date in seven years when Johnny invites Joannie and her daughter to dinner. His house is beautiful, his son is sweet, and their first kiss is, well, it’s not the best, but Joannie could convince herself it was nice enough. But when Joannie’s childhood crush, a summer camp fling turned famous billionaire, crash lands his hot air balloon in Johnny’s swimming pool, Joannie dives in.

Soon she finds herself alighting on a lost weekend with Johnny the bad kisser, Jonathan the billionaire, and Julia his smart, stunning wife. Does Joannie want Jonathan? Does Julia want her husband? Or Joannie? Or Joannie’s beautiful little girl? Does Johnny want Julia? Does Jonathan want Joannie, or Julia, or maybe, his much younger personal assistant, Vivian, who is tasked to fix it all? A tale of lust and money and lust for money, Hot Air is as astonishing as it is blisteringly funny, a delirious, delicious story for our billionaire era.

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My Review: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice for modern times. A bit prim and a lot heteronormative for my taste.

I'm not mad about it, also not mad I read it. Some decent one-liners in here.

Knopf (non-affiliate Amazon link) wants $13.99 for the ebook. *shrug*

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O Sinners!: A Novel by Nicole Cuffy

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A journalist investigates a seductive and mysterious cult and its leader, an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran, in this not-to-be-missed novel.

Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist reeling from the recent death of his father, a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed in a cult called The Nameless. Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War-veteran named Odo, The Nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “THERE IS NO GOD BUT THE NAMELESS,” “ALL SUFFERING IS DISTORTION,” and “SEE ONLY BEAUTY.” Faruq, skeptical but committed to unraveling the mystery of The Nameless, extends his stay over months, as he gets deeper into the cult's inner workings, compassionate teachings, and closer to Odo. Faruq himself begins to unravel, forced to come-to-terms with the memories he has been running from while trying to resist Odo's spell.

Told in three seamlessly interwoven threads between Faruq’s present-day investigation, Odo’s time before the formation of the movement as a Black infantryman during the Vietnam War, alongside three other Black soldiers, and a documentary script that recounts The Nameless’ clash with a Texan fundamentalist church, O SINNERS! examines both longing and belonging. Ultimately the novel What is it that we seek from cults and, inevitably, from each other?

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My Review: I am exactly the right audience for this story: I think cults are reprehensible, predatory horrors; I'm part of the generation defined by the Vietnam War and its aftermath; I'm a strong advocate of novels that tell stories complicated by memories a character needs to repress in order to make sense of their daily life.

After about the fifth time-switch I felt ping-ponged; after the repetitions of the 18 Utterances, I was not able to control my eyerolling. I just liked the story, yet didn't like the storytelling as much.

One World (non-affiliate Amazon link) asks $13.99 for the ebook. I myownself would ask the library to get one.

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The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Emma Donoghue, the “soul-stirring” (Oprah Daily) nationally bestselling author of Room, returns with a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station.

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

From an author whose “writing is superb alchemy” (Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author), The Paris Express is an evocative masterpiece that effortlessly captures the politics, glamour, chaos, and speed that marked the end of the 19th century.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Of all the (too-many) characters in this story, I liked the train the best.

Quite a change from Room and its claustrophobic one-space, a crowded cast of characters and actions that merely move them around the train to talk at each other some more left me...unsatisfied. I'd've liked Author Donoghue to cut a few, and home in on the ones left. Beautiful sentences, and a fascinating historical background, rescue the story from mediocrity. Make it a movie already!

Summit Books (non-affiliate Amazon link) charges a reasonable $12.99 for an ebook.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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The Antidote by Karen Russell (64%)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. A gripping Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town

The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch," whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.

Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.

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My Review: I cried "Uncle" at 64% because I just don't care anymore.

I hadn't meant to sound so angry. Nothing about their calm faces in my uncle's kitchen made any sense.

I read that, thought, "I couldn't agree more," and put the book down. I had steadily lost interest, which was a sadness since I really wanted this read to thrill and delight me. It *sounds* great!

Knopf thinks $14.99 (non-affiliate Amazon link) is right and proper. I say use the library.

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The Ego System: The Awakening by René Zografos (51%)

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Can we afford to stand by as our planet collapses?

In the past 50 years, humanity has wiped out 70% of the world’s wild animals. Our oceans are being emptied, wildlife habitats destroyed, and ecosystems pushed to the brink, all to satisfy an insatiable hunger for meat and animal products.

In The Ego: The Awakening, award-winning journalist René Zografos reveals the devastating consequences of the meat industry on the environment, animal welfare, and our health. With eye-opening insights into factory farming, wildlife crimes, and political inaction, this book challenges us to rethink our choices and their impact on the planet.

Discover how factory farming fuels climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss.Animal suffering is hidden by an industry designed to obscure the truth.Plant-based living can lead to a sustainable future and improved personal health.This is more than a wake-up call. It’s a call to action, offering practical steps to create a better world. Zografos blends compelling facts, personal reflections, and a sense of urgency to empower readers to make meaningful changes.

Proceeds from this book support animal welfare, ensuring that every purchase makes a difference. It’s not too late to save our planet. The time to act is now. Will you be part of the solution?

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My Review: More citations, less verbiage.

However much I agree with you, rigorous adherence to standards is even more urgent than ever when you're arguing against the Orthodoxy.

Kindle Unlimited for free (non-affiliate Amazon link), if you must.

THE NIGHT GUEST, deeply unnerving psychological domestic horror novella centers misogyny

THE NIGHT GUEST
HILDUR KNÚTADÓTTIR (tr. Mary Robinette Kowal)
Tor Nightfire (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$11.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Hildur Knutsdottir's The Night Guest is an eerie and ensnaring story set in contemporary Reykjavík that’s sure to keep you awake at night.

Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause.

When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same ― have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps.

Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . .

What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?

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My Review: I'm always down for a psychological horror read. This one has a strong message about misogyny at its core. I think that is what powered me past my disappointing reading experience.

Iðunn's world is a very familiar, quotidian one of tedious work, unfulfilling relationships, and family pressures that might or might not be external. Like so many, maybe every, female of my acquaintance, she's a poor sleeper. This has multiple negative effects on a person's life. Iðunn tries to make changes in her sleeping deficits with a fancy new kind of wearable multiple-axes tracking device.

The promised data on her sleeping patterns tells a story that does not make sleep come any easier. If anything the data scares her more; and the device itself seems to be making her life, not only her sleep deficit, much worse.

Iðunn's sense of crushing responsibility for every single thing in her life is not unfamiliar to me. It's just not something I think is always an external pressure as Iðunn thinks it is. No matter; her responses to the world are the story, so putting aside my sense of her emotional immaturity, I travel down the unhappy trail with her. Why is she, for want of another term, sleepwalking? Why does her body acquire wounds during her unconsciousness? If it isn't sleep, what is this state and why is it part of her nightly experience that is unavailable to her daylight mind?

I was ready to quit the read when animal harm entered the chat. I was perfectly happy to follow the deteriorating sense of control over her body and mind; it seems to me to be an excellent metaphor for being a woman in a misogyny-drenched world. I'm very much not down with harming creatures that can not adequately defend themselves, when it's done for cruelty's sake most especially. In this case it did nit feel to me to be more than an intensifying trope; it did not come from something within Iðunn that was just bursting out of her in a horrible way...see The Wasp Factory for an example of what I mean by that.

I decided to trust the eminent Mary Robinette Kowal, a personal favorite creative talent, whose translation of the text felt very smooth and organic and unlike I was reading a story at an extra remove. That often happens to me, even in excellent translations. This story isn't ever going to be a five-star read to me, thought I, but it's way better than average.

Then...the ending.

Three and a half stars. No more, no less.