Fetter-Vorm, Jonathan. Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb.

NY: Hill & Wang, 2012.

It’s possible this nicely done book hits a stronger chord with me than it might with younger readers, inasmuch as I was born before the beginning of the Atomic Age and grew up in the ’50s in a world in the grip of the Cold War. The author doesn’t oversimplify the issues surrounding the development and use of atomic weapons, either.

Crombie, Deborah. A Bitter Feast.

NY: HarperCollins, 2019.

This is the 18th episode in the pretty good crime series featuring Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his wife, DI Gemma James, both of the Met in London. This series has been running since 1993 and I was beginning to think that perhaps that was long enough. The plots, frankly, were beginning to get a bit thin.

Taylor, Jodi. A Trail Through Time.

Abercyon, UK: Accent Press, 2013.

I first began reading this first-rate time travel series a few years ago, and I got through the first three volumes (reviews of which may be found at this site), but then I got sidetracked by circumstances. Now I’ve resumed the adventure with the fourth episode — having first gone back and re-read the first three, to remind myself of who’s who and what’s been going on

Chambers, Becky. To Be Taught, If Fortunate.

NY: Harper, 2019.

Becky is an amazingly original writer, as demonstrated in her first three novels, but this standalone novella has no connection with the future she depicts there. What this story is about, essentially, is distance. Forty-seven light years isn’t very far, galactically speaking, but it’s a very long way from home for the four-person crew of the Merian.

McDonald, Abby. Getting Over Garrett Delaney.

Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press 2012.

In some ways, this YA novel is one of the lighter ones — no deaths or other family tragedies — and it’s pretty good. Sadie is seventeen and has had a crush on Garrett for most of her life. He doesn’t see her that way, though, so she long ago settled for being best friends. She’ll take what she can get — though she hates it when he keeps coming to her for advice on the latest girl he’s fallen for.

Cleeves, Ann. The Long Call.

NY: St. Martin, 2019.

I very much enjoyed Cleeves’s “”Shetlands” series of crime novels, and my wife thinks highly of her earlier series featuring Vera Stanhope, but both of those have pretty much run their natural course. So I was interested to hear that she was beginning a new third series — and the first book in it is pretty good.

Bennett, Jenn. Starry Eyes.

NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018.

Sixteen-year-old Zorie Everhart is part of a weird sort of family. Her father is a masseur and her Korean stepmother is a general-purpose therapist with a love of incense and bullet-pointed life plans. And right next door to their “wellness clinic” in northern California is a sex-toy shop run by two gay women whose son, Lennon, is the boy who broke her heart some months before.

Turney, S. J. A. Praetorian: The Great Game.

London: Mulcahey Books, 2015.

My undergraduate degree (many years ago) was in Greek and Roman, and I’ve also done a good bit of study over the succeeding decades in military history, so a historical novel about Rome’s Praetorian Guard during the early reign of Commodus in the 2nd Century is something I have to approach with a certain amount of trepidation. An insufficient amount of research by the author can really make a mess of something like this. But I’m pleased to say that Turney obviously knows his subject.

Biren, Sara. Cold Day in the Sun.

NY: Abrams, 2019.

Except for swimming and track in high school, I was never much of an athlete and contact sports just don’t do a thing for me. Especially ice hockey, which isn’t that big a thing here in the Deep South anyway. Nevertheless, I was completely caught up in the adventures and tribulations of Holland Delviss, known (against her wishes) as “Dutch,” one of the stars of the varsity hockey squad of her northern Minnesota high school.

Winslow, Don. The Gentleman’s Hour.

NY: Simon & Schuser, 2009

This is the direct sequel to The Dawn Patrol, set just a few months later, and all the members of the Dawn Patrol have a role to play. But this time, the plot involves a couple of guys from the Gentleman’s Hour, which is “the second shift on the daily surfing clock.” After the younger guys have left for their regular jobs, the rest of the morning’s waves belong to the older veterans.