Opinions of a Professional Reader
Los Angeles: Humanoids, 2018.
This graphic novel combines a deeply involving story, a beautifully written narrative, and absolutely perfect understated art. So, yeah, I really, really liked it. So, It’s 1995 and 15-year-old Luisa lives in a small, rural French town.
NY: Simon & Schuster, 2017.
This one had been on my TBR list for some time, because I really liked Reid’s most recent book, Daisy Jones & the Six, and also because everyone I know has been raving about Evelyn Hugo. It was certainly worth the wait.
Continue reading “Reid, Taylor Jenkins. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.”
NY: Ace Books, 2008.
I can’t believe it took me so long to discover this really excellent urban fantasy series. The protagonist is Mercy Thompson, half-white and half-native, and the best VW mechanic in southeastern Washington State. She got to that point through the training of Zee, who is one of the fae,
NY: Del Rey, 2011.
The “Rivers of London”s series, a combination of urban fantasy and police procedural, has been running for awhile but I’ve only recently discovered it. This is the second volume and PC Peter Grant of the Met has been an apprentice wizard to DCI Thomas Nightingale for nearly a year.
NY: HarperCollins, 2004.
Keyes, who is Irish, has apparently published a number of novels but she’s new to me, and this one isn’t bad. Gemma Hogan is a Dublin-based event-planner in her early thirties and she’s good at her job, though she frequently hates it because of the entitled and demanding clients she has to deal with.
Continue reading “Keyes, Marian. The Other Side of the Story.”
NY: Berkley, 2019.
Waxman is the author of four novels, but this is the first one I’ve read, and it’s quite good, a combination of psychological portrait and rom-com. Nina is a native Angeleno and not far from being a recluse. She works in an independent bookstore, a job she loves, and lives in a small guest-house at the back of a large property nearby.
Continue reading “Waxman, Abbi. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.”
NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018.
Robotham is known for writing highly original thrillers that frequently are nominated for awards — and he’s won a few, too. This one is definitely strange and it will hold your attention right up through the last explosive chapter. (And I mean that literally.) “Evie Cormac” isn’t her real name, it was chosen for her by the courts so they would have something to call her.
Abercynon, UK: Accent Press, 2017.
Regular readers of my reviews will know by now that I’m a big fan of Jodi Taylor’s yarns about the continuing time-traveling adventures of the historians of St. Mary’s Institute, and this tenth in the series is no exception. The previous installment was much more emotional and harder to read than those that came before.
Continue reading “Taylor, Jodi. An Argumentation of Historians.”
NY: Ballantine, 2010.
Like the first graphic novel adaptation of the Odd Thomas stories that I read awhile back, this second one features the artwork of Queenie Chan. It also has many of the same problems, although the characters aren’t quite so cookie-cutter similar in appearance. But the anime style really doesn’t work for this kind of yarn.
Toronto: Harlequin Books, 2019.
I’ve been a science fiction fan for a long, long time and one of my favorite sub-genres has always been time travel. This one is a very unusual take on that field, and it appears to be Chen’s debut novel. The protagonist is Kin Stewart, who used to be a time traveling secret agent (literally) based in 2142 and working for the very hush-hush Temporal Corruption Bureau.
BookSmith 