Here's to Us

I just finished Here's to Us.  Elin Hilderband is my go-to summer beach read. I think it's because all of her books are set in Nantucket. This latest is about a chef who has died in his summer home in Nantucket.  There was also a call back to another story where one of the wives of the chef tries to buy a house from what I think is a character from one of her previous books.

Inoffensively enjoyable.  Predictable. I am going to go back to my seasonal/periodic re-read of the All Souls Trilogy which I love.

The Summer Before the War

Helen Simonson's latest book, The Summer Before the War, was surprising. I enjoyed her previous novel (Major Pettigrew) but this wasn't high on my must-read. The book is set in a Sussex town in the year before World War I.  It's almost a cross between Downton Abbey and well.... Downton Abbey..

Hugh, the nephew of a gentry family,  and Beatrice, a latin teacher, experience an array of "adventures" worthy of Julian Fellowes.  The book deals lightly with social change, including two sets of LGBT characters.  In the end there are deaths as a result of the war.

The book was slow, but the end was satisfying.

Eleanor

A good cover can make all the difference.

Eleanor had a great cover.  I know you shouldn't pick a book by it's cover, but I am certainly guilty of that. I loved this simplicity of this -- the eyes, the tears, what might be a face as the land.  Too bad the story itself didn't deliver in the way I wanted it too.  In this story, Eleanor, named after her grandmother committed suicide continues to dip into and out of time and a dream realm to right a wrong. Her twin sister died when they were six, and Eleanor has lived with the  repercussions of that ever since. I don't know. I didn't care about the dream state. Time travel, when handled in an interesting manner is interesting. But here, it was a plot device.  I also wanted a definitive answer about what happens to Eleanor or Esmeralda AFTER the reset. Alas, such a wish was unfulfilled.

Friction

Friction is an entirely mindless romance novel. After reading All the Birds in the Sky, I wanted something that I could read without really thinking about.  That was definitely this.  

I will admit, I like romance as a genre because it's so plot intensive. You are pulled into the story and, when done well, the conventions of the genre are played with. That was not the case with this book. Female judge, Texas ranger, bad guy trying to get revenge.  Five days of trying to protect someone. Steamy sex. The end.  I read it in a couple of hours.  Was it "worth it"?  I don't know. It was definitely mindless entertainment. If reading is good for you, then this was like eating a bag of cheetos.

All the Birds in the Sky

I definitely wanted to like All the Birds in Sky more than I actually did. This allegorical novel that takes on Magic vs. Science just felt overwrought. Patricia and Laurence are looking for ways to solve the problems humans have started, just using different mechanisms to figure it out. It took forever for me to finish this book, yet I couldn't NOT finish it. Which, I guess means it was fine. Or fine enough.   A little silly and pretentious with a doomsday machines and magic unravellings. Enh.

Best quote:  "Boredom is the mind's scar tissue."

Best quote runner up: "Children are adults who haven't yet learned to make fear their hand puppet"  (but like most of this book, it sounds good but on further inspection actually makes no sense) 

Stiletto

Stiletto is the long awaited sequel to Daniel O'Malley's excellent and fun book The Rook.  When I say long awaited, I am in no way exaggerating -- this book has taken many years to come out.  This book picks up with Myfanwy Thomas plowing ahead uniting two organizations (The Checquy and The Grafters) that deal in a shadow world of improbable creatures.

The book introduces two new badass females Felicity and Odette as well as a terrorist organization that is working to destabilize The Grafters and strike out at the Checquy. While I appreciated a lot of the backstory, there was so much exposition that some times the plot felt bogged down.

I still laughed aloud a few times and I was consistently pulled back into the plot. This is a fun sci-fi book and very worth a read, but be sure to read the first book first!

Haggis and Tank Unleashed #1: All Paws on Desk

This book is about two dogs Haggis  and Tank who have a wild imagination they pretend to be pirates a wagon as a ship.They find a map in an bottle and sail to find the treasure but they don't a sea serpent sails toward them."Abandon ship" said Captain Scurvy said.

I like this book because Captain Scurvy said"Abandon ship".