HENRY TUDOR MUST DIE, feminist historical revenge fantasy about a notable femicidal maniac

HENRY TUDOR MUST DIE
JILLIAN LAINE
Berkley Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: One queen exiled. Another headed for the gallows. Both hungry for revenge. England’s most infamous queens set out to reclaim their story and unite in vengeance against Henry VIII.

Anne Boleyn is going to die, and neither her cleverness nor her witchery can save her. So when her late rival, Catalina de Aragón, miraculously appears in her cell at the Tower of London on the eve of her execution, very much alive and offering a daring escape plan, no one is more surprised than Anne.

Lina doesn’t have Anne’s magic—but she has just as much hate for England’s wretched king. Severed from her daughter and stripped of all her influence, Lina breathes only for the Hellebore Sisterhood, a clandestine and powerful society with a vested interest in keeping both queens alive…and using their particular skills to advance womankind.

Anne and Lina’s old rivalries pale in comparison to a common enemy. One by one, they capture their pawns, infiltrating the court, recruiting the new queens in Henry’s orbit, and eliminating the men who plotted against them. Always inching closer to their true target…

And they want his head.

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My Review: What if the serial-killing society-wrecking lying scumbag H8 had been telling the truth (for once) when he accused Anne Boleyn of being a witch? What if the recently-deceased rightful queen,here called by her proper name Catalina de Aragón, shows up in Anne's cell before her murder as a representative of the Hellebore Sisterhood, a supernatural group determined not to put up with H8's shenanigans against women?

As a fantasia, the musical composition sense applied to fiction, on the awful facts of Tudor England, it struck many a satisfying note. (My biggest quibble is with lesbian Anna of Cleves. It feels silly, but good lord I'm not quibbling about a months-dead Catholic lady from religious-nut Spanish parentage appearing in her adulterous replacement's cell to rescue her from her judicial murder so never bloody mind about that I guess.) H8's reign is one I'm always interested to read disruptions and alterations of because he was such a pill. Because his greed, his arrogance, his utter self-regarding solipsism was so hugely consequential in all the worst ways on England's social fabric that it always makes me smile in schadenfreudic glee when a writer unleashes hell on him.

Unleashing hell is a plan for the Queens in this revenge fantasy. I don't think another ragefest of this type would necessarily fly, or at least it wouldn't with me, absent such a horrific target for the Queens' H8rade punch. It gets pretty, uhhhmmm, vivid so it won't leave you in any doubt about why the subject of their (out)rage is chosen, and thus leading you to who the Hellebore Sisterhood might be. It's a topic I'd love to discuss but one huge spoiler tag might cover it but will also drive potential readers away. I'm here for more Hellebore Sisterhood stories if you choose to write them, Author Jillian.

And that coming from a man, who is not a massive fantasy-readin' lover of the tropes, ought to say a lot. I think as alternate-history stories about these Queens they're no great shakes, failing the believability test at literally every turn; they're not meant to be alternate-history stories but fantasies set in an alternate universe where there are other rules for physics. None of this is going to convince wedded-to-consensus-reality reader to drop their filters, so my purpose is to warn those folks to shop elsewhere. None of this story will work for you.

Author Jillian's debut adult novel is a delight if you'll let go of the slavish adherence to plausibility rules about history retellings. It's easier to write straightforward fantasy where one invents a secondary world with all-new names and no stroppy literalists who Have Opinions about bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated Reality. I myownself greatly prefer Author Jillian's way of engaging with one of History's most fascinating inflection points.

What explains my missing half-star is a certain lesbian. That really did feel like I'd been asked to go a bridge too far. I'm an old grouch, I get to have crotchets just because. I want to draw your attention to the remaining four and a half shiny stars to have my reputation as a discerning judge of quality entertainment validated.

THE OPEN ERA, romantic fiction with tennis players in the lead roles

THE OPEN ERA
EDWARD SCHMIT
Berkley Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$10.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Love evens the score between two tennis players in this stunning debut romance.

Recently-turned-pro tennis player Austin Hardy has been out since high school and it's never been a big deal. That is, until he becomes the first openly gay man to compete in a Grand Slam. Suddenly, being gay is a huge deal, with headlines to prove it.

Unprepared for this new spotlight, Austin’s anxiety disorder hits a breaking point, and he trips and falls at practice. Right next to the very attractive, very talented, and probably straight Diego Cruz, ranked World #2.

The two players start a friendship off the court. But between their flirty banter, mixed signals, and brewing rivalry, Austin is thrown further off his game by Diego.

With the eyes of the world on Austin, the weight of history on his shoulders, and Diego across the net—he must decide if love means nothing or if love means everything as he battles for the trophy during an electric two weeks at the US Open.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I'm guiltily reminded of this DRC by Marisa Tandon's hour-long interview with the author. It was on my Pride Month agenda, but wasn't moving up the stack very quickly because the book-review traffic is seriously backed up this unnerving politically charged year.

If you haven't encountered Marisa Tandon yet, she's the LA sports nut who believes romance and sports go together like sugar and spice. Better together, fine apart...and her channel's the reason I got interested enough to watch Off Campus, which she praised. (Not for me, straight people having romances involves and interests me not at all. Well done to Ms. Tandon for even getting me over to Prime.)

I'm glad I read this book over the past twelve days. It's not a tropey romance, in my view, but a contemporary novel about two athletes who fall in love as they compete in the sport each of them truly loves but which, in its basics, is designed in queer-unfriendly ways. Maybe homophobia is inherent in sports because it's so very physical, so centered on what bodies do and can do, that it breeds anxiety in the breeders (slur used intentionally in this context) lest their precious hold on superiority in our culture be threatened by success in Others' hands. Think white supremacist nonsense over Black athletic accomplishments.

As Austin copes with his sudden rise to parity in standing with Diego, tennis's second-seed star, he is prone to panic attacks. How that works as an aspiring professional athlete, well, I'm not all the way convinced it would. It's the source of much of the young men's emotional energy as they discover they're falling in love. Diego's the second lead, a young man of many sterling qualities. One of them is not really empathy or he wouldn't more or less ghost Austin after being really supportive. There's definitely no HEA and barely the minimum-standard HFN ending. I'd enjoy seeing the young men do more in another book, one that either brings them firmly together or separates them for good.

I don't think the anti-romance crowd, of whom I once was a part, will cringe at this story's very light dusting of men falling in love. It's not going to trigger the lighter eww-ick homophobes. It's a story about finding love, finding out about how the line between love and friendship is always squiggly, while existing in the full glare of the public gaze.

What's left undone, unsaid, unresolved is always fertile ground for storytellers with the itch to make their readers or viewers sit with uncomfortable realizations and hard truths of emotional life. Not everyone who deserves the HEA gets it. Not everyone who falls in love knows what the heck to do about it, or how to make it work. Sometimes the right one comes along before they're properly prepared.

Which is why there's a whole category called "second chance romance."

I hope Austin and Diego don't need that label, but am always glad to see them if/when they return.

SANCTUARY, a talented writer's debut dystopian cli-fi tale of tomorrow's reality

SANCTUARY
JAMES CLEARY
Berkley Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: “The meek shall inherit the Earth, unless the rich get there first.” That’s the reality of the post-apocalyptic world in this electrifying debut thriller.

The near future…

Climate disasters have crippled the United States. With half the country under water and the other half a dust bowl, civil unrest would soon escalate into something darker, something unstoppable. Billionaire John Brandt anticipated this and channeled his money, power, and influence into being prepared for the great unraveling.

Now Brandt, his family, and his security team must retreat to Sanctuary, their underground bunker—a vast luxury mansion beneath the parched earth of the Nebraskan Great Plains. But they are not alone. Above ground a group of raiders are desperate to survive and will use any means possible to accomplish that goal.

As tensions mount both inside and out, battle lines are drawn—between the haves and the have-nots, between decency and expediency, between life and death. In this game, everyone's a loser.

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My Review: Eco-thriller beginnings as the planet's climate collapses into chaos, the US follows suit, and the civilization we take for granted vanishes. Dystopian survival story post-collapse nightmare comes for us all. The necessary, we-will-have-it conversation of how much is enough, how will you share your excess, if you won't do it voluntarily we will make you. Thhese three storytelling modes co-exist, with highly permeable boundaries, in debut Author Cleary's book.

It's a melange of ideas that turns at times into a melee. The combatants are all possessed of powerful motivation, survival, and thus give it their all. We-the-reader are given a straightforward narrative that propels the story from inception to ending (if just a bit abrupt in our arrival there) interleaved with journal entries that add emotional textures and act as masses that alter the flow of the story's movement. I did not feel this was quite deft enough in its execution for me to offer that fifth star, but it's a hard tick to pull off. So a quarter-star for the right idea not exactly well executed.

None of the above touches on the emotional punch of this story. The coinage of "grey swan" on analogy with "black-swan event" is particularly deft and effective. A grey-swan event is visible, clearly understood to be coming, and yet somehow still ignorable thus ignored. Very like the characterization of bureaucratic pettifoggers being said to "rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic" as the Depression of 1929-1939 unfolded.

I hope I do not need to belabor this point's relevance to 2026's audiences.

As hunger, true hunger, bites these people in this world, morality shifts. We in the US have not faced hunger of famine proportions in so long it is not even in living memory. Our insulation will be stripped away. It will bring dark, ugly revelations to individual members of the out group. It's a stark truth, attested for many millennia, that starving people will do anything at all to survive. It is built into us as animals. It changes the people in this story: "The dad. The husband. The carpenter…The murderer? Yes…It hadn’t even been that hard."

It's a lot to take in, but it is a distillation that rises from much documentary evidence.

Start preparing now. The Grey Swan is looming.

THE YOUNG WILL REMEMBER, the Korean War should never, ever be "forgotten"

THE YOUNG WILL REMEMBER
EVE J. CHUNG
Berkley Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A sweeping novel about a correspondent trapped behind enemy lines during the Korean War, and the women who help her find her way home, from the national bestselling author of Daughters of Shandong.

“When I found the courage to lift my head, I expected to stare down the barrel of a gun, but instead there was a woman in front of me, the back of her white skirt embroidered with columns of yellow chrysanthemums.”

1950. It’s the coldest winter in decades, and twenty-eight-year-old Chinese American journalist Ellie Chang is on a military flight to cover a battle in the mountains of North Korea when her plane is shot down.

As she emerges from the fallen aircraft onto an icy field surrounded by the enemy, Ellie is sure it’s the end, certain she’ll never make it home to her parents…until a woman pushes her way through the crowd and claims Ellie as the lost daughter that she’s been searching for since the last war ended. Never mind that Ellie doesn’t speak a word of Korean.

Ellie is taken in by her rescuer—a woman who calls herself “Emma”—and the Paks, a pastor’s family. She knows she can’t stay and yet there’s no way she’ll survive on her own.

As the war intensifies, the sky alighting with bombs overhead, Ellie convinces Emma and the Paks to travel south towards an elusive promise of safety, and where Ellie insists they are more likely to find Emma’s real daughter, stuck on the other side of the frontlines.

Emma’s decision to claim Ellie, and Ellie’s choice to take her hand will connect their lives forever.

Moving and triumphant, The Young Will Remember sheds light on a “Forgotten War,” the resilience of love within our darkest histories, and the indefatigable determination of mothers to protect their children.

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My Review: Stories with this kind of stakes, "everything changes because one moment to the next a decision is made," always appeal to me. So do stories about Korea, probably because it was my father's wartime experience. This story, then, started out with literally every advantage granted to it.

Why then is my rating so mingy?

Because the author is very, very clear on the story she wants to tell, but rather less so on the craft of storytelling. The dialogue, the scene-setting, the stakes she clearly thought through carefully, all work together. They don't cohere emotionally to punch me in the gut as I weep for the fate awaiting Emma and the Paks if they are not able to use Eleanor's Americanness to leverage an escape.

Here is my opportunity to say that Eleanor's CHINESE-Americanness rubbed a serious saddle-sore on me. Emma claiming this CHINESE-American woman as her long-lost daughter...well, no one in Korea would fall for that for a single second. Han people, assuming that's who Ellie's ancestors were which is by no means guaranteed, are visually quite distinct from the Korean people; it's very "Western" to assume there's no difference, or such a small difference as to be indistinguishable to natives of the region.

So...the story's foundation was my problem, not the story itself. The awful intersection of colonialism and its bastard child warmongering was the source of the story's impetus. As Ellie and Emma navigate their intersecting desires to leave the place they are, escaping the suite of violent terrors that war orchestrates for those who are not allowed control of their world (read: old men), they illuminate the compromises and suffering the old men in charge inflict so indifferently on the world's mass of humanity. In service of what? Does any ideology, any philosophy, justify the titanic life-altering suffering of vast numbers of people? Ellie, a war correspondent, is well placed to use the scalpel of reporting to cut away the rottenness of propaganda to expose the real wounds caused to real people. Emma's loss of her daughter to the Japanese colonialists, probably as a "comfort woman" or, more accurately, a sex slave has wounded her entire family. The author, a lawyer by trade, has clearly read Frantz Fanon ("The formula 'this all happened long ago' is substituted by that of 'we are going to speak of what happened somewhere else, but it might well have happened here today and it might happen tomorrow') or encountered his ideas of the artist as moral actor because this story is very much the argument for despair, and its fellow traveler inactivity, as a moral wrong.

Ellie spends part of the story in survival mode, not doing anything to actively improve her chances for escape. In this time of joining the woman who "claimed" her as a daughter, she is gathering her circle of women who share a goal of ending the harms being done; it's assembling a posse, not only sinking into a morass of misery. Going back to my foundational problem, would Emma's actual daughter need the kind of help and instruction Ellie receives all uncommented on?

It all ends up making this a three-and-a-half star read. I found the prose adequate, if unexciting; quite mannered at times thus unlikely to move me to empathetic tears. The story being told moved me to outrage and its hotter, briefer tears. Ellie...and Emma...are supremely tough women. Reading about their struggles was angering, educational, and instructive. I did not come away converted to Eve Chung fandom though I'll read another story by her. I respect her eye for what makes a good story and hope she will enter into the next one all guns blazing.

THE MIDNIGHT TAXI, delightful debut cozy

THE MIDNIGHT TAXI
YOSHA GUNASEKERA
Berkley Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: When the last fare of the night turns up dead in her backseat, a Sri Lankan American taxi driver works off the clock to clear her name in this mystery novel by debut author Yosha Gunasekera.

Siriwathi Perera doesn’t quite know where she’s going in life. She never expected to be a taxicab driver in New York City, struggling to make ends meet and still living with her parents at twenty-eight. The true-crime podcasts that keep Siri company as she drives don’t do much to make up for the legal career she imagined for herself, or the brother she’s grieving.

When public defender Amaya Fernando gets into her cab, they make a quick connection through their shared Sri Lankan roots. Siri, whose social circle is limited to her grade-school best friend, Alex, thinks things might finally be looking up with this new potential friendship. But she’s suddenly dropped into her own true crime when she discovers her next passenger murdered in the backseat, and she has to call Amaya sooner than she’d expected.

Pinned as the obvious and only suspect, and desperate to clear her name, Siri chases down leads across the boroughs of New York City with Amaya’s help. But with her court date looming, they have just five days to find out who really killed the midnight passenger—or Siri’s life will be over before she can even truly live it.

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My Review: The author of this ultimate expression of the locked-room mystery is an attorney with the Innocence Project. As a Sri Lankan New Yorker herself, as well as a former public defender and a lawyer practicing with the poorest citizens, her bona fides on every side of this story are established.

The facts of the case are great, designed to keep the puzzle-solving reader alert. The story, as a mystery tory, gets good marks. Siri's interest in true-crime podcasts reflecting her thwarted desire to be a lawyer. It's also, mirabile dictu, a possible key to resolving the death of her passenger...a rookie error on the author's part but honestly, it's a debut so it's forgiven. I mean, how convenient...a lot like how Siri knows fellow Sri Lankan American public defender Amaya. After the two hit it off when Amaya is a fare, who else would Siri call when the police decide they've got their killer and it's her?

Pick one of those coincidences and kill the other. It could've, even might have, happened in Real Life but fiction has different, more stringent rules. (Also as a future Bronxian I bristled just a bit at being called kind but not nice.) The charm of these women bonding over the racism they manage with humor and more generosity than I would, over their families and their quirks (and dwell on their stunningly scrummy sounding meals!), and share a sense of humor based on their very similar life experiences as South Asian women in a patriarchal racist culture. It felt...inevitable, necessary...that Siri be advised by counsel to keep quiet and then she begins popping off!

It's a gently cozy murder mystery à la the Finlay Donovan series, driven by character interactions and the kind of chemistry a series needs. Expect book two soon, or so I expect anyway. I thought the pacing, crime. discovery, clue searches, and the like was exemplary. I thought the resolution was good, giving me the sense that I *could* have figured it out (I didn't).

The case notes don't include complaints about the fun way to see NYC from an angle not remotely like my old white male one. I'm ruffled by the casual, thoughtless nastiness of some people towards anyone not like them everywhere. It hits a little harder when you see it emanating from the place you think of as home.

All in all, a pleasurable puzzle to chew over, a Valentine to the maddening, delightful NYC I have loved and lived in for decades, and a very suitable launch to a new cozy series from a new voice I hope, plan, and expect to hear more from.

MRS. CHRISTIE AT THE MYSTERY GUILD LIBRARY (Mrs. Christie #1), new cozy-mystery series with literary ghost-sleuth

MRS. CHRISTIE AT THE MYSTERY GUILD LIBRARY (Mrs. Christie #1)
AMANDA CHAPMAN
Berkley Books /Berkley Prime Crime (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Book conservator Tory Van Dyne and a woman claiming to be Agatha Christie on holiday from the Great Beyond join forces to catch a killer in this spirited mystery from Amanda Chapman.

Tory Van Dyne is the most down-to-earth member of a decidedly eccentric old-money New York family. For one thing, as book conservator at Manhattan’s Mystery Guild Library, she actually has a job. Plus, she’s left up-town society behind for a quiet life downtown. So she’s not thrilled when she discovers a woman in the library’s Christie Room who calmly introduces herself as Agatha Christie, politely requests a cocktail and announces she’s there to help solve a murder—that has not yet happened.

But as soon as Tory determines that this is just a fairly nutty Christie fangirl, her socialite/actress cousin Nicola gets caught up in the suspicious death of her less-than-lovable talent agent. Nic, as always, looks to Tory for help. Tory, in turn, looks to Mrs. Christie. The woman, whoever or whatever she is, clearly knows her stuff when it comes to crime.

Aided by a found family of unlikely sleuths—including a snarky librarian, an eleven-year-old computer whiz, and an NYPD detective with terrible taste in suits—Tory and the woman claiming to be her very much deceased literary idol begin to unravel the twists and turns of a murderer’s devious mind. Because, in the immortal words of Miss Jane Marple, “murder is never simple.”

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My Review: Need a puzzle to solve to see summer out? Something with just enough unreality to feel low-stakes and just enough emotional reality to make investing in it worth your time?

Berkley Books' Prime Crime imprint gotcha covered with Amanda Chapman's first offering.

I expected to be politely dismissive of this first in a proposed series by Amy Pershing's alter ego. I haven't read her other cozy series. I don't think I will because there's cozy, then there's so cozy you can't breathe, like an oppressively crowded Victorian living room. That's Cape Cod to me, where her other series is set.

I'll take Manhattan.

It's fun to find the call-outs to Christie's works scattered around, and it's fun...to my surprise...to have Dame Agatha just appear out of nowhere to work with Tory on solving what they know is a murder but are having trouble convincing others has that feel to it. For that matter how Tory becomes convinced that Dame Agatha is who she says she is gets handled the same way: tough and disbelieving attitude at first, then it just is part of reality in the story. In my own experience that's exactly how the unthinkable, the unbelievable, gets trojan-horsed into becoming the way things are. It's very much helped along in this narrative by the fact that Dame Agatha is only seen inside the library setting, not out wandering the Village.

It did not escape my notice that the first-person narrator, Tory, has the unbelievably cush life she has because she's a nepo baby. It's not really made much of, just presented as fact. There's no real pushback, but the situation isn't set up to draw attention to itself...Tory's a woman with a life and a style not available without lucky draws in the birth lottery.

That's all so very cozy as a backdrop. It is meant to offer the reader maximum comfort as rents in the fabric of society get repaired and ma'at is restored as it must be in a series mystery. A concern I felt going in was that the Christie-facing bits would really *require* the reader to know already what that particular story referred to was about, or the reference would fall flat; not at all the case. I found the varying levels of familiarity with Dame Agatha's works never impacted my understanding of the plot in any negative way. It offered a frisson of fun when I got it, but nothing was lost when /i didn't see the story connection for myself because that was dealt with in dialogue.

Tory, as the main character and the first-person narrator, will of necessity need to appeal to you for the read to work.

Later, when I'd had a chance to process our little encounter, I realized it made a kind of weird sense that if my guest was indeed Agatha Christie (which I did not believe for a minute), and if she had indeed decided to visit New York City some fifty years after she'd been airlifted to the Great Beyond (which I also did not believe for a minute), she might indeed choose New York's Mystery Guild Library as a home base.

Not quite the first words in the book, but darn close. This is what you're getting, so if you don't like it already, then horseman, pass by.

Me, I'm all in. And the next one, too. Fair enough play, a fun narrative voice, a premise silly enough to make me smile but never played for laughs at anyone...if only I'd liked the love interest I'd be raving!

ONE DEATH AT A TIME is fun and often enough funny...about alcoholism, fame, and growing up

ONE DEATH AT A TIME
ABBI WAXMAN
Berkley Books (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$10.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A cranky former actress teams up with her Gen Z sobriety sponsor to solve the murder that threatens to send her back to prison in this dazzling new mystery novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.

When Julia Mann, a bad-tempered ex-actress and professional thorn in the side of authority, runs into Natasha Mason at an AA meeting, it’s anything but a meet-cute. Julia just found a dead body in her swimming pool, and the cops say she did it (she already went to jail for murder once, so now they think she’s making a habit of it). Mason is eager to clear Julia’s name and help keep her sober, but all Julia wants is for Mason to leave her alone.

As their investigation ranges from the Hollywood Hills to the world of burlesque to the country clubs of Palm Springs, this unconventional team realizes their shared love of sarcasm and poor life choices are proving to be a powerful combination. Will secrets from their past trip them up, or will their team of showgirls, cat burglars, and Hollywood agents help them stay one step ahead? Are dead piranhas, false noses, and a giant martini glass important clues or simply your typical day in Los Angeles? And will they manage to solve the crime before they kill each other, or worse, fall off the wagon? Trying to keep it simple and take it easy is one thing—trying to find a murderer before they kill again is a whole other program.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Fun, funny buddy comedy set on the outskirts of that glam hotspot, Hollywood's movie industry. There's bad behavior from entitled jerks, there's a high-speed golf cart chase, there's a distinctly sapphic undertone to the leads' chemistry...there's a lot to enjoy, in other words.

Youthful impulsivity (Natasha quitting law school was the kind of stupid thing I'd've yelled at her for) and the darker side of alcohol abuse (blackouts are not new to Julia) are facets of this story. Adjusting to aging, launching a career, re-launching a career...all bantered over and really dealt with as Natasha and Julia are traipsing from pillar to post to figure out how the hell Tony, Julia's nasty ex-lover, ended up dead in her pool. Most of all, though, I was there to see how Julia would stay sober in a super high-stress world like moviemaking. Author Waxman dealt with Julia's very new sobriety and the underknown challenges the sobriety seeker faces staying on the wagon (low blood sugar is one of the most common traps for the unwary) honestly and forthrightly without didacticism.

This contrasts to the, um, shall we say heightened, tone and nature of the crime these women are united to solve. Everything about it is absurd. It's meant to be. This is the movie industry we're skewering. I'm not inclined to seek out these areas of comedy that often. I'm glad I did this time because, well, I needed a laugh that was more substantial than a romcom, had service to Ma'at and the Rightness of the world, and felt grounded enough in reality...you do not get more real that seeking sobriety...to give me a place to stand while I was craning my neck to follow the story's breakneck action.

I'm not even whelmed, still less overwhelmed, by the storytelling voice. It felt...flat...to me because it tried so hard. I'm a tough room, especially for comedy, because it is so difficult to convince me you mean it when you're being funny. This story fell only slightly short in my eyes, largely due to Natasha's dramatic unsuitability to the role of sponsor. Not that Julia would ever be someone to take real advantage of that relationship. She's not really built to listen to critique, only to hear criticism. Many an actor falls into that habit of hearing.

All that said, I'm impressed by the story's honest and unusually detailed dealings with alcohol addiction. I give it four stars for that, and for managing to make even cynical old mystery reader me pay attention to the sleuths' frenetic chasing after fairly obvious clues.

Author Waxman will get more of my dwindling supply of eyeblinks in future.

PONY CONFIDENTIAL, urban-fantasy talking animal story meets cozy mystery

PONY CONFIDENTIAL
CHRISTINA LYNCH
Berkley Books
$28.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: In this one-of-a-kind mystery with heart and humor, a hilariously grumpy pony must save the only human he’s ever loved after discovering she stands accused of a murder he knows she didn’t commit.

Pony has been passed from owner to owner for longer than he can remember. Fed up, he busts out and goes on a cross-country mission to reunite with the only little girl he ever loved, Penny, who he was separated from and hasn’t seen in years.

Penny, now an adult, is living an ordinary life when she gets a knock on her door and finds herself in handcuffs, accused of murder and whisked back to the place she grew up. Her only comfort when the past comes back to haunt her are the memories of her precious, rebellious pony.

Hearing of Penny’s fate, Pony knows that Penny is no murderer. So, as smart and devious as he is cute, the pony must use his hard-won knowledge of human weakness and cruelty to try to clear Penny’s name and find the real killer.

This acutely observant feel-good mystery reveals the humanity of animals and beastliness of humans in a rollicking escapade of epic proportions.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: You know that Swede who writes about cutesy old people? Of course you do, y'all luuuv him as much as Richard Osman! (Only Osman's old people are cool, unlike that Swede's faux-feisty feebs.) Now imagine that Swede decided to take over Spencer Quinn's Chet and Bernie series.

Yeah. That, and Remarkably Bright Creatures chucked in for good measure. So what's it doing as a regular review, not a Burgoine? "When you like a book, but don't love it, it's a Burgoine," someone is even now saying to their screen.

Penny and fluent English-hearer Pony the pony, separately and together, do some very good mental health work, that's why it's a regular review, and thanks for noticing. Penny's never quite gotten a grip on Life; as a result she is always on the back foot with the people and situations in her life. Being a kindergatren teacher does not make this easier. Being a single mom to a cute kid with a really bad relationship to the father, well...gettin' the drift here? She has a life-altering nightmare hit her square in the chops, and here we come to the first-ever in my reviews spoiler. (Stop laughing! And pointing is rude.)

This para has the spoiler: When Penny was twelve, a terrible, fatal accident occurred and her family has to run away. Pony got left behind, and is still bitter about it. Penny's now being accused of murder, twenty years later, and is hauled off to jail. A mother with a child is hauled off to jail for suspicion of involvement in a twenty-year-old crime.

This is really, really unbelievable to me.

Howsomever, the plot needs driving so drive we shall. Grouchy, misanthropic Pony hears and understands this, decides he's off to save Penny (the one human he's ever loved) and has so many cool adventures...all of 'em opportunitites to shine a light onto how truly unfair and sadistically convoluted late-stage capitalism is. I agree with this and find the looneyness of the animal characters' various voices great fun. They banter together, discuss how rotten humans are. They still say home truths about each other that will get past the guard of all but the most cynical. I'll go with it.

I want to note that suicide and depression are more than minor plot points without being foregrounded.

As a puzzle, the villains are very two-dimensional thus easy to spot. I read a lot of mysteries, though, so ma'at leads my eyes (as the Egyptians said) and I figured it out; honestly, that's not the point here. Read this for feel-good cuteness. Read this for affirmation the world *can* be good. Read this, in short, for fun.

I did. It was. Everybody's happy. (Even Pony.)

THE BOOK OF WITCHING, the kind of horror that keeps me awake

THE BOOK OF WITCHING
C.J. COOKE
Berkley Books
$19.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A mother must fight for her daughter’s life in this fierce and haunting tale of witchcraft and revenge from the author of A Haunting in the Arctic.

Clem gets a call that is every mother’s worst nightmare. Her nineteen-year-old daughter Erin is unconscious in the hospital after a hiking trip with her friends on the remote Orkney Islands that met a horrifying end, leaving her boyfriend dead and her best friend missing. When Erin wakes, she doesn’t recognize her mother. And she doesn’t answer to her name, but insists she is someone named Nyx.

Clem travels the site of her daughter’s accident, determined to find out what happened to her. The answer may lie in a dark secret in the history of the Orkneys: a woman wrongly accused of witchcraft and murder four centuries ago. Clem begins to wonder if Erin’s strange behavior is a symptom of a broken mind, or the effects of an ancient curse?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The dual-timeline haters are duly warned: this novel uses that technique in an absolutely inescapable way. It's not a gimmick to improve pacing...it's integral to the story, and deployed in a way you invest in right away, or really dislike instantly. It does not change for the entire book so be advised of that if you do not like it on contact.

The initial horror set-up, a mother hearing that her daughter who was off on an adventure holiday is now in the hospital, scared me enough. "It can't get worse than this," thought innocent little me. Your kid's in a burn unit far away. You have to get there, worried out of your mind. Your beloved only child is, when you can finally speak to her, someone else...or so she says. "It can not get worse than this," I shuddered.

Had I but known....

I don't go in for supernatural stories, witches and devils and suchlike silliness. If something supernatural like that existed, I'd've seen it for myself in these past *cough*ty-*mumble* years. Ain't happened. Weird shit, yes; devils and gods and miracles, nope. None of that kind of horror is here, either. It's all the slimy rottenness of Humanity. It's all the horrible stench of misogyny. It's all greed and control at their ugliest and most personal.

Just in somehow linked points in past and present.

That's as far as suspension of disbelief will take me, so I'm glad that's as far as we went. There's nothing but a truly unnervingly described...talisman? power focus?...wisely left ambiguous. If one wants a supernatural explanation for these weirdly entwined events so distant from each other in time, there's a way to see that; there's also nothing that requires it to have that explanation, and the horror in the story told is of human origin.

That made it just right for me to read this #Deathtober, and is why I gave it four stars. I found Clem's anguish and confusion horrifying because they're totally relatable. Her child, a new mother herself, is wounded terribly in body and quite possibly irretrievably in psyche. That could not possibly be worse, except evil Author Cooke made it scarier by introducing elements that are outside normal parameters.

Parents of teens strongly cautioned.

KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE, women-as-assassins is fun enough...OLD women?! Better still!

KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE
DEANNA RAYBOURN (Killers of a Certain Age #1)
Berkley Books
$17.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that's their secret weapon.

They've spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're sixty years old, four women friends can't just retire—it's kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller.

Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills.

When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realize they've been marked for death.

Now to get out alive they have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the secret to their survival. They're about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman—and a killer—of a certain age.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Aren't revenge-fantasy stories fun? In general, the genre gives me a vicarious delight in the ability of the PoV character(s) to exact personal revenge on them as wronged 'em. I find the more general type of revenge story, the wars/quests/crusades sort, not as compelling as this direct and deeply personal kind.

What works here, for this old male reader, is the "just-assume-the-backstory" nature of the women's friendships. There are hops back and forth in the story's timeline that fill in details, but honestly they were integrated in a way that worked to increase my investment in the shared backstory. It felt a bit like having a memory flash when you're talking to someone you've known for ages.

That might also be a bit of a problem for book one of a series, with the next one (Kills Well with Others) to come on 11 March 2025. I think the way people expect stuff to go in this book is more violent, more "wet job" details in it. Instead, we get the motivation for the revenge story, and the way these women plan and execute (!) events based on their cultural invisibility. I myownself liked that better than the pleasures to be had from a solidly crafted Repairman Jack tale. It's more relatable, more like something I could see myself doing if I was competent in these arts.

Billie, our primary PoV character (though we hear from everyone), has a dry, biting wit that agrees with me, and the situations that are supposed to be funny were indeed funny to me. Humor's hard, y'all, so Author Raybourn gets and deserves nosegays of praise for that achievement. It's also welcome to have women as professional killers, if I'm honest. They're so good at the job they've never been caught. This is probably a weird thing to say, but the existence of women reinforcing ma'at on the dark side seems to me like a welcome development. Saintly do-gooders? Been there done that. Cops repairing the broken social compact? Yawn. Targeting and killing them what just needs killin'? NOW you got me.

A four-star funhouse mirror held to the myth of women as passive, victim-of-crime ciphers. These are vibrant personalities with agency, doing what they know from long experience how to do, only against the ingrates they thought were on their side. I think it's well worth your time and treasure.

BEST MEN, gay-male romcom light on rom but very well supplied with com!

BEST MEN
SIDNEY KARGER
Berkley Books
$17.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: When two best men in a wedding party fall for each other, they realize love isn't a piece of cake in this hilarious and heartfelt romantic comedy debut by screenwriter Sidney Karger.

Max Moody thought he had everything figured out. He's trying to live his best life in New York City and has the best friend a gay guy could ask for: Paige. She and Max grew up next door to each other in the suburbs of Chicago. She can light up any party. She finishes his sentences. She's always a reliable splunch (they don't like to use the word brunch) partner. But then Max's whole world is turned upside down when Paige suddenly announces some huge news: she's engaged and wants Max to be her man of honor. Max was always the romantic one who imagined he would get married before the unpredictable Paige and is shocked to hear she's ready to settle down. But it turns out there's not just one new man in Paige's life--there are two.

There's the groom, Austin, who's a perfectly nice guy. Then there's his charming, fun and ridiculously handsome gay younger brother, Chasten, who is Austin's best man. As Paige's wedding draws closer, Max, the introverted Midwesterner, and Chasten, the social butterfly East Coaster, realize they're like oil and water. Yet they still have to figure out how to coexist in Paige's life while not making her wedding festivities all about them. But can the tiny romantic spark between these two very different guys transform their best man supporting roles into the leading best men in each other's lives?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Max, 35, is Old. He tells us so himself. As I am damn near twice that age, I got right tired of hearing that nonsense. Max has a disastrous love-life. Max has one friend, Paige, for most of his life, and she is what I would call a collector: someone who gets a lot of people into her orbit and then keeps them there without paying a lot of attention to them. Max himself points this up by mentioning their friendship habit of going to a specific diner and Paige does the same trick of focusing all attention on herself with even the waitstaff...who, like Paige, basically ignore Max.

I am familiar with this kind of "friendship." It happens to a lot of gay guys I know, not the best-looking, not the most outgoing, but who still crave affection and settle for this dark twin of it because it's obvious that the friend is doing them a favor. It's so pervasive in Max's life that he has a friends-with-benefits deal going with his ex...who literally makes the booty call and then tells Max he just needed to get off before his date with the new guy in his life so he wouldn't come across as too sexually demanding!

It's all Max knows, being second-best, so he rolls with witty sarcasm as his defense mechanism. There are lists and texts and all sorts of not-story documents larded in to this too-long but very relatable story of modern friendship among the generation where gay is just a thing you are. These are the people who piss off the old white men who wear traitorous flags to show what patriots they are the most. It's not important that anyone is gay until Paige gets among the older people she needs to make herself different from.

I liked the snark, I liked the honesty about Max's Paige-provided employment and its soul-sucking banal cruelty...which Max is a big part of delivering!...and I liked the scene on Fire Island with Max as the very, very obvious fish out of water. I got no chemistry to explain why Max and Chasten were into each other, it seemed to take forever before anything happened and then it was as though they'd never been at odds or felt aggrieved by the other's presence in Paige's court of admirers. Shall we say there's no real tension resolved and be as discreet as Max himself is about details of his more lurid energies. The narrative is all-Max all the time and for over 300 pages it's a kind of strange thing that we never once see anything but the barest surfaces of Max's responses to anyone.

Self-loathing ≠ introspection.

I'd've preferred a shorter version of the story, or more delving into the real feelings behind Max's witty, bitchy narration. It's okay as a com, but the rom part left me wondering what more there was to all these characters. What makes the read fun is the snark; what needed moe thought was the length. I'll be on the lookout for Author Karger's next book with high hopes.

30 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MYSELF, a truly pleasurable read that just could not be more fun to read

30 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MYSELF
RADHIKA SANGHANI
Berkley Books (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$9.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: When a British Indian woman's life hits rock bottom, she decides to change her stars by falling in love...with herself—a hilarious, heartfelt story from outrageously funny novelist Radhika Sanghani.

Nina didn't plan to spend her thirtieth birthday in jail, yet here she is in her pajamas, locked in a holding cell. There's no Wi-Fi, no wine, no carbs—and no one to celebrate with.

Unfortunately, it gives Nina plenty of time to reflect on how screwed up her life is. She's just broken up with her fiancé, and now has to move back into her childhood home to live with her depressed older brother and their uptight, traditional Indian mother. Her career as a freelance journalist isn't going in the direction she wants, and all her friends are too busy being successful to hang out with her.

Just as Nina falls into despair, a book lands in her cell: How to Love Yourself (and Fix Your Shitty Life in the Process). It must be destiny. With literally nothing left to lose, Nina makes a life-changing decision to embark on a self-love journey. By her next birthday, she's going to find thirty things she loves about herself.

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My Review: You can't be sure you're reading a novel until Nina actually reads How to Love Yourself (and Fix Your Shitty Life in the Process). Really? A bit on-the-nose to reach her when she's in the clink! I mean, I'd just sit out the sentence before I'd read that. Still, Nina's pretty much looking at her (pretty comedic) arrest as an intervention from the Universe.

But, given her inability even to make a decent choice of only-phone-call recipient resulting in her return to her *truly*ghastly* mother's orbit, that could prove to be life saving. Or losing...it's a close-run thing whether she'll survive Daily Mailish history-chucking-out nightmare Mum. *I* almost didn't survive Mother Mistry. What a gorgon. In fact...just being totally transparent here!...I really didn't like wishy-washy, what's-the-female-nebbish-called Nina. I get it...a mother like that one would kick the sense and the sensibility right out of you. No one knows more or better than she does! Then there's drippy, dreary, depressed closet case Kal. Yeesh!

Why, then, am I reviewing it. Two words: Tantric. Sex.

You'll have to read the book to figure out why. But you'll have a lot of fun doing it, so I'm not wasting my tears for you. You're going to be glad you did, you nutty slacker. Glad you powered past the ex bringing his new squeeze to a party when Nina was guaranteed to be there...because dear ol' Mum dragged her. Glad you ignored the fact that a thirty-year-old online journalist needed her brother to explain doxing to her. Or when her self-immolative attempts to go up against a TV shock jock are so very, so painfully naive....

And let's be honest, folks, the sheer number of us humans who can use...really, really use...the truth behind Andrew Solomon's quoted-in-story quote, "The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality..." runs into the octuple digits. I suspect, though, that quite a lot more of y'all will follow Nina Mistry, Financial Abundance Manifester, in her (unorthodox but) proven effective plan to get the, um, kitty replenished.

What the heck is all this in aid of...well, my olds, there is absolutely no better time than the New Year to manifest self-love and self-acceptance by reading something that will make you giggle, and squirm, and blush. Cringe comedy lovers, here's you a book! Silly self-help sozzlers, here's you a book! You are in need of grins? You are in luck, here's you a book!

And you know what? Many more books need to have "Namaste, bitches," in them.

THE ANTIDOTE FOR EVERYTHING, a charming romantic story with much-needed humor

THE ANTIDOTE FOR EVERYTHING
KIMMERY MARTIN
Berkley Books
$16.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: In this whip-smart and timely novel from acclaimed author Kimmery Martin, two doctors travel a surprising path when they must choose between treating their patients and keeping their jobs.

Georgia Brown’s profession as a urologist requires her to interact with plenty of naked men, but her romantic prospects have fizzled. The most important person in her life is her friend Jonah Tsukada, a funny, empathetic family medicine doctor who works at the same hospital in Charleston, South Carolina and who has become as close as family to her.

Just after Georgia leaves the country for a medical conference, Jonah shares startling news. The hospital is instructing doctors to stop providing medical care for transgender patients. Jonah, a gay man, is the first to be fired when he refuses to abandon his patients. Stunned by the predicament of her closest friend, Georgia’s natural instinct is to fight alongside him. But when her attempts to address the situation result in incalculable harm, both Georgia and Jonah find themselves facing the loss of much more than their careers.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT OF MY LOCAL LIBRARY. USE THAT LIBRARY! THEY NEED OUR BUSINESS!

My Review: This is, apparently, one of my reviews that got struck because of the actions of someone truly cowardly and contemptible. No matter now! Their claws have been pulled, which is a thing I wouldn't even do to a cat.

When Georgia, a kind-hearted and very busy doctor, flies to Amsterdam to a conference, she is gifted by the universe with a hot guy, Mark, to have a vacation romance with. The problem is she's got a world of distracting trouble at home that impacts her found family, most especially her gay BFF Jonah. The solution is for Jonah to pack up and join her (and Mark) in Amsterdam.

As they're doctors, this doesn't strain credulity. They can afford it; they're neither one married or even involved (except Georgia's thinking about Mark that way and is wondering if he is too). The time they spend playing together in Amsterdam is illuminating...and you just know what will come of that when they get home! Mark's cool with Jonah the gay BFF, and with Georgia being herself. In fact, he's just a really, really great guy. This is always a good sign!

“I see,” Mark said, a perplexed look on his face as they all took seats. Georgia and Jonah did that to people sometimes: the syncopated rhythm of their speech, their obvious closeness, the unadulterated fun they had in each other’s company—all these things had bothered previous boyfriends of both of them, even though neither of them, of course, could possibly present as a romantic rival. But Mark didn’t seem threatened, just alert. He shifted his attention back to her.

All fun must end; all good things come with hideously high price tags, if the small-souled religious jackanapes have anything at all to say about it. And, in South Carolina where Georgia and Jonah practice medicine, they certainly do:

“That’s a widely held misconception, that science and religion are incompatible,” she said. “And if you’re Southern and religious, everyone assumes you’ve got the brainpower of an amoeba and you fit in socially somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun.”

–and–

"I've read the Gospels," she said, pausing, "word for word, and I feel strongly that Christ would not have said to me, 'Suffer unto the gays urinary retention; but everybody else can see the urologist.'"

I absolutely adore that line. It's so exactly and precisely accurate, true, and a devastating rebuke of the misuse of Religion from within the church! I know it's a no-brainer...but I am enraged at this (fictional; barely) nightmarish homophobic, transphobic, heinously unchristian use of their stupid religion's *actual*expressed*foundational*tenets* at every turn. That's what elevates this read above the herd and makes me wish I could push it at more people.

Another facet of Georgia (and, to my surprise, mega-rich-guy Mark) is the anti-materialist commonsensicality of them both:

Here she was, primed for action, and stuck with nothing to attack except a herd of smug Danish modern sling-back chairs the color of a polished acorn.

–and–

She beckoned toward a mohair-covered daybed, strewn with cashmere throws in various flaming colors: fuchsia, orange, lime. “This could take a while. Why don’t you join me on the divan? I’ll make cocktails.”

“This thing looks like a crayon factory vomited on a cotton ball,” he said, but, obediently, he removed his suit jacket and flopped onto the mohair concoction.

It's a lovely little grace note...not only does Georgia not check her brain at the church door, she doesn't fall for the blandishments of the overpriced and underdelivered "luxury goods" industry. Mark, we're told, is a businessman with a track record of success, so it makes a little less sense to me for him not to use the glossy surfaces of things to advertise it...but I will gladly accept Author Kimmery's decision.

What happens as a result of this authorial decision is that, as the stakes pile up and begin to form the auto-da-fé pyre, I am deeply and intensely invested in it all. I am not going to tell you anything I wouldn't've wanted to know going into this read: There's serious and disgusting amounts of sexism, homophobia, and deeply toxic patriarchal masculinity that gets weaponized against both our main characters (and thus, in Mark's eyes, against him too). There's a lot of soul-searching and conversation that ponders the real costs of the kind of stupidity and hatred that passes for "politically conservative morality" (in reality not political, not conservative, not moral):

In this day and age, people believe whatever fits with their worldview, no matter how strong the evidence against it is.

–and–

"The only thing that matters—the only antidote for discrimination and corruption and every other evil that plagues our society—is integrity. Behaving with honor. Shining a light on the truth. Not gaming the system to suit your . . . aims.”

There's a lot to unpack in those sentences. I am always surprised when someone writes down and gets published what I've been saying in my head for a long time. It's definitely happened here.

The way this book ends is, well...it suits the story. I think it should tell long-time readers of my reviews everything they need to know when I say I forgot to count the w-bombs Author Kimmery dropped on me...I forgot to notice them after two or three. I was that deeply and passionately involved in this well-told tale of what Family means, of how Faith should look, and what Fairness demands.

Definitely recommended reading.

PRINCE'S GAMBIT, second THE CAPTIVE PRINCE novel, still trigger-laden but DAAA-YUM

PRINCE'S GAMBIT
C.S. PACAT (Captive Prince #2)
Berkley Books
$16.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: With their countries on the brink of war, Damen and his new master, Prince Laurent, must exchange the intrigues of the palace for the sweeping might of the battlefield as they travel to the border to avert a lethal plot.

Forced to hide his identity, Damen finds himself increasingly drawn to the dangerous, charismatic Laurent. But as the fledgling trust between the two men deepens, the truth of secrets from both their pasts is poised to deal them the crowning death blow…

My Review: Still hot, still transgressive, still replete with vocabulary words. All the boxes ticked on your play-at-home scorecard? Good. You're getting what you've paid for already.

But you're also getting an enriched reading experience. The reality level of the intrigues and plots is enhanced; the twists and turns of royal morality are even more starkly limned; and jeebus goddlemitey damn the SEX! The STAKES! The brain-bending HOT SEX! (Wait, did I say that before? So what it needs saying again. And again.)

Wherever this nice straight lady got her wildly gay imagination from, it's on full display here; but so is her scheming Machiavellian side, and her much-better-hidden hearts&flowers romantical side. That they're all given to both of the main characters as well is a major coup. Mechanical sex gets dull. Twisty turny intrigue without any personal, passionate stakes starts dull. No sin goes unrewarded in this series! Makes for a propulsive, addictive read.

I renew my call to Nick Jonas's people: Get these rights and make your man a superstar by making a faithful adaptation of the series. His Prince Damianos/Damen the sex-slave would win him a shelf full of hardware from the Industry.

CAPTIVE PRINCE, scorching hot BDSM fantasy/romance MULTIPLE TRIGGERS

CAPTIVE PRINCE
C.S. PACAT (Captive Prince #1)
Berkley Books
$15.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.

Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.

For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else…

My Review: Initially this trilogy of hatred-to-love, enemies-to-lovers tales were self-published by Aussie phenom Pacat. They're a global sensation now, and it's a sign of great intelligence that she signed up with a major publisher to build on her existing success. This is what Big Publishing does best, market/print/distribute bestsellers.

Court intrigue and sibling rivalry and crazy-hot DubCon BDSM! Consent be dubious and be damned, this really scorches the pages with (largely off-page) sexual blast furnace-hot fantasies. Hey Nick Jonas! Want a legion of rabid fans to do your bidding forever? Make this series into a pay-TV legend by playing Prince Damianos/Damen the sex slave!

There are a lot of things not to love about DubCon (dubious consent for the uninitiated) romances. No one can deny or minimize the existence of the fantasy in legions of private little skulls. And Pacat, yet another lady M/M romance/fuckbook writer in what appears to be a neverending gusher of same, has the touch down pat. She knows what to say and when and then shut up when even one more word would take the page from scorching to squicky. This is a giant gift.

Yes, there is underaged character sex abuse in the book. There is no way at all to interpret its presentation as positive, though. It is clearly meant to be an index of the perp's vile, disgusting, horrifying evilness. I'm not exactly okay with its presence, but I'm not howling for Pacat's blood because of the way she shows the subject.

MOST DEFINITELY NOT RECOMMENDED for those bereft of sexual desire triggered by gay men, whatever their own plumbing and relationship to same.

KINGS RISING, gay romance/fantasy trilogy's end, my vote in Romance Goodreads Choice Awards

KINGS RISING
C.S. PACAT (Captive Prince #3)
Berkley Books
$16.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Damianos of Akielos has returned.

His identity now revealed, Damen must face his master Prince Laurent as Damianos of Akielos, the man Laurent has sworn to kill.

On the brink of a momentous battle, the future of both their countries hangs in the balance. In the south, Kastor’s forces are massing. In the north, the Regent’s armies are mobilising for war. Damen’s only hope of reclaiming his throne is to fight together with Laurent against their usurpers.

Forced into an uneasy alliance the two princes journey deep into Akielos, where they face their most dangerous opposition yet. But even if the fragile trust they have built survives the revelation of Damen’s identity—can it stand against the Regents final, deadly play for the throne?

My Review: I voted for this book in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards. Fantasy worlds with m/m love stories will always beat out teenaged girls with exceptional powers unrecognized by everyone else. The love/hate story here is both imaginative and fun.

It's not perfect, and several times my eyes had to be firmly schooled not to roll, but the bones of the story work well as a quest fantasy and I'm accustomed to endings that make little to no sense and feel tacked on like a bow taped to a present. The fact that sworn enemies become lovers isn't an issue, since it's a romance evergreen. It makes sense, after all, as the passion of hatred is fairly easily and often converted into the passion of love.

What makes the ending not work well for me is its promise of Happily Ever After. That's a bit rich, considering what's come before it for two and three-quarters books!

WHERE SERPENTS SLEEP, fourth helping of chocolate-coated crack in mystery novel form

WHERE SERPENTS SLEEP
C.S. HARRIS
Berkley Books
$8.99 mass market or Kindle editions, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: London, 1812. The brutal slaughter of eight young prostitutes in a house of refuge near Covent Garden leaves only one survivor- and one witness: Hero Jarvis, reform-minded daughter of the Prince Regent's cousin, Lord Jarvis. When the Machiavellian powerbroker quashes any official inquiry that might reveal his daughter's unorthodox presence, Hero launches an investigation of her own and turns to Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, for help.

Working in an uneasy alliance, Hero and Sebastian follow a trail of clues leading from the seedy brothels and docksides of London's East End to the Mayfair mansions of a noble family with dark secrets to hide. Risking both their lives and their reputations, the two must race against time to stop a killer whose ominous plot threatens to shake the nation to its very core.

My Review: ADDICTIVE SERIES ADVISORY!
As much incoherent gabbling as I did at the end of my review for WHY MERMAIDS SING, I had no way to know that Miss C.S. Harris had a nitro-fueled bullet-shaped moon rocket of a reveal in this book that would ratchet up the stakes for the entire series from here on.

It's a doozy, believe me, and it's also just too much fun and too exciting to imagine how book five will be handling this situation for you not to start NOW getting these books. The series is 11 books old now, I think, so we know we're not getting left in the lurch with no closure. (I hate that! It's why I only watch TV series on Prime, Netflix, and Acorn these days.)

As Sebastian is grieving the BIG Reveal from last book and the havoc it has wreaked on his mind, heart, and soul, he stops caring...or numbs it, anyway...about people in trouble, so stops investigating crimes. It takes his annoying Nemesis, Miss Hero Jarvis who is the daughter of England's most powerful man, to wake Sebastian up and bring out his sense of the rightness of spending his time righting wrongs for those otherwise too weak to expect help.

Miss Jarvis, meanwhile, is caught up in an obsessive need to discover the truth behind a series of murders that shake her to her core. In her efforts to make the world a better place, Hero has decided to research and write a bill to go before Parliament that will offer help to impoverished women, thus reducing the enormous supply of prostitutes in London. Speaking with these unfortunate women and girls, Hero finds herself learning more than is desirable for a gently born woman. But she found, and then watched murdered, a younger woman from exactly her class in a rehabilitation home for "soiled doves."

Hero's interest leads her to Sebastian, whom she has tangled with previously in the series. And so we're off to the races, the two frenemies careening around London one step ahead of their mysterious prey. As the sleuths don't know the why of the killings, they're powerless to stop more of them from occurring. As the clues mount up, they point to an unthinkable, horrifying motive that neither can believe could possibly be true...until the unprecedented event happens despite their efforts to warn of and even stop it.

But that is far from all there is to this tale. The original puzzle of the presence of a well-born woman in a home for fallen women has at its heart a revolting and heart-wrenching revelation. The young woman who died in Hero's arms was, in the final analysis, the most pitiable and unsaveable victim of them all. The revelation of the motive for the youngster to leave Society for a life of whoring causes both Hero and Sebastian a shock that will never leave them. The same would be true in the modern world, I promise you.

There is nothing more fun than watching an expert author, proficient in using her writing talent and marvelously, deeply involved in creating her settings and characters, blow them right out of their comfortable water in the scariest (to them) way possible.

***ADDICTIVE SERIES WARNING*** WHY MERMAIDS SING, third Sebastian St Cyr mystery, takes it up a few notches

WHY MERMAIDS SING
C.S.HARRIS
Berkley Books
$7.99 mass market, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: It's September 1811, and someone is killing the wealthy young sons of London's most prominent families. Partially butchered, with strange objects stuffed into their mouths, their bodies are found dumped in public places at dawn. When the grisly remains of Alfred, Lord Stanton's eldest son are discovered in the Old Palace Yard beside the House of Lords, the local magistrate turns to Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, for help.

Ranging from the gritty world of Thames-side docks to the luxurious drawing rooms of Mayfair, Sebastian finds himself confronting his most puzzling--and disturbing--case yet. With the help of his trusted allies--young servant Tom, Irish doctor Paul Gibson, and his lover Kat Boleyn--Sebastian struggles to decipher a cryptic set of clues that link the scion of a banking family to the son of a humble Kentish vicar. For as one killing follows another, Sebastian discovers he is confronting a murderer with both a method and a purpose to his ritualized killings, and that the key to it all may lie in the enigmatic stanzas of a haunting poem...and in a secret so dangerous that men are willing to sacrifice their own children to keep the truth from becoming known.

My Review: Book three keeps on going at a very high level

This series is a continuing pleasure, I'm thrilled to say. WHY MERMAIDS SING is one of the most disturbing books I've read in a long time, right up there with THE WASP FACTORY. The things that Harris has the killer do to these young men are truly scary. Even more disturbing to me is the who and the why of these violent violations of the young victims.

Harris has, as is standard in the series, made Regency London as real as anything in this room I'm writing in. The smells, the sights, the incredible inequality of income that assaults modern sensibilities. The characters, the veneers they wear, the stark contrast between their insides and outsides. It's a pleasure to read a good writer's strong writing and follow a plot that shows inventive ingenuity of a high order.

St Cyr is a terrific guide to London, as his ancestry (he's a viscount) opens doors that his disgrace (undeserved, I assure you) would otherwise close. That's as true down the social order as it is up. The fact that he ends this book with a rather new set of problems and issues, well...Harris...that is....

Oh my heck. Jeemenee Christmas. Holy Mongolia.

There aren't words...none that I know...for me to describe this entry's Big Reveal. It is truly a reveal, and "big" is a paltry small word for what goeth on here.

It makes perfect sense, in context, but it has a wallop that rocks my world.

Yeah. Make that two big reveals, each bigger than the last and holy maloley can I ever not wait for volume four to get here. NOW!!!!

Addictive Book Warning: WHEN GODS DIE, second Sebastian St Cyr mystery delivers on promise of first

WHEN GODS DIE
C.S. HARRIS
Berkley Books
$7.99 mass market, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Brighton, England, 1811. The beautiful wife of an aging Marquis is found dead in the arms of the Prince Regent. Draped around her neck lies an ancient necklace with mythic origins-and mysterious ties to Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin. Haunted by his past, Sebastian investigates both the Marchioness's death and his own possible connection to it-and discovers a complex pattern of lies and subterfuge. With the aid of his lover, Kat Boleyn, and a former street urchin now under his protection, Sebastian edges closer to the killer. And when one murder follows another, he confronts a conspiracy that threatens his own identity...and imperils the monarchy itself.

My Review: BOOK 2 OF HIGHLY ADDICTIVE SERIES

Don't tell me about how mean I am if you get hooked.

Second outing for author and sleuth. Some surprising twists in the pretty standard plot. More slightly annoying anachronisms, but they're completely forgotten because the author called George the Regent "Prinny."

I laughed until I stopped. What a name!

This book is a bit less romancey because the plot is driven by some fascinating political realities of the period. The biggest surprises are all personally relevant to sleuth Sebastian St Cyr/Devlin; some will fester, some will free him. It's a very emotionally charged book, moreso than the first, and it's just about as surprising as an author can make it be without spoilering her next book.

I think it's possible to read the books out of order, since the author is so careful to provide backstory as needed, and without the dreaded infodump feeling to it. I'd say it's very much worth your eyeblinks.

***Warning*** Addictive Mystery Series WHAT ANGELS FEAR, book 1

WHAT ANGELS FEAR
C.S. HARRIS
Berkley Books
$8.99 mass market, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: It's 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III's England. Then a beautiful young woman is found raped and savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol discovered at the scene and the damning testimony of a witness both point to one man, Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experience in the Napoleonic Wars.

Now a fugitive running for his life, Sebastian calls upon his skill as an agent during the war to catch the killer and prove his own innocence. In the process, he accumulates a band of unlikely allies, including the enigmatic beauty Kat Boleyn, who broke Sebastian's heart years ago. In Sebastian's world of intrigue and espionage, nothing is as it seems, yet the truth may hold the key to the future of the British monarchy, as well as to Sebastian's own salvation....

My Review: BOOK ONE OF ADDICTIVE SERIES

You've been warned.

It's amazing how involving I *still* find the Regency, even after many and various outrages perpetrated on its remnant mummy corpse. People with ultramod unprejudiced 'tudes bearing titles like Lord Shavingrazorden and the Duchess of Murkwatter,entertaining. People traveling to far points without seeming to spend the required months. I mean seriously, how did all those East Indiamen get to Fort Thingummy in Malaya in a twinkling? Ye Olde Concorde?

*ahem*

This book does its share of anachronism-perpetuating. Devlin, our hero, is a straight (in all senses)-ahead 21st century romance hero. Doesn't make him unappealing; it makes me a little impatient, I guess.

What makes this book so appealing to me is the atmosphere, the evocation of the London that one writer characterized as "...diamonds gleaming in the manure pile." Rich was better than poor by right; titles better than all the masses by right; royalty? Fuhgeddaboudit.

The characters around Devlin are all very clearly delineated, and several recur (no spoiler in that, since it's a series mystery) with evolving storylines that tie them into a unit in some unexpexcted and, honestly, some surprising and upsetting ways. Of course the female characters are single-emotion placeholders. I say of course because a first mystery usually has this minor and female character flaw, giving them shorter shrift than is advisable early on.

Withal the book is very worthy of your shelf space; the series is high quality reading; and the price of entry paltry compared to the pleasures you'll get.