Jane Litte's Blog, page 35

Open Thread for Readers for October 2023

Got a book you want to talk about? Frustrated with a book or series? In love with a new one? Found a buried treasure? An issue that keeps popping up in the books you are reading? Just want to chat about stuff in general? Post about it here!

REVIEW: The Navigating Fox by Christopher Rowe

The Navigating Fox is a fantastical fable of “knowledgeable creatures”, in the vein of Brian Jacques’s Redwall series but for adults, by Hugo and Nebula Award finalist Christopher Rowe

Quintus Shu’al, the world’s only navigating fox, is in disgrace after guiding an expedition to its doom, leaving no survivors. One year later, Quintus is offered the chance to redeem himself: he will need to lead a motley, fractious team—both human and animal—all the way to the gates of Hell.

Dear Mr. Rowe, 

I ...

Review: The Master of Samar by Melissa Scott

Rejected by his aristocratic family, Gil Irichels has been content to make his living as a traveling cursebreaker, working with his lover, the feral mage Envar Cassi, and their bodyguard, swordswoman Arak min’Aroi. After a series of deaths leave him the sole heir to the family’s house and fortune, Irichels’s main concern is to do whatever he must to settle the estate and return to his previous life. But these is something very wrong in seaborne Bejanth, starting with the deaths of his kin a...

REVIEW: The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft

The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case.

But when they are approached by the royal secretary and told the king ple...

REVIEW: Her Off-Limits Single Dad by Marion Lennox

She puts everything on the line for her patients, but is this paramedic willing to risk her heart for a gorgeous doctor and his adorable son? Dive into the first story in the Paramedics and Pups duet from Harlequin Medical Romance author Marion Lennox.

Colleagues, housemates…

Soulmates?

After a disastrous relationship, paramedic Jenny needs this fresh start in remote Willhua. When her living arrangements fall through, gorgeous local doc Rob offers Jenny and the injured pup she’s just rescued a...

REVIEW: Time to Shine by Rachel Reid

Content Note:  grief over death of a close family member

Dear Rachel Reid,

Oh I’ve missed your books!  It feels like ages since there was a new one. (In reality it’s been 18 months. But it feels longer.) The best news is that Time to Shine was definitely worth the wait. It’s a delight.

Landon Stackhouse is a goalie playing in the AHL for the Calgary farm team in Saskatoon. He is called up to the NHL team when their backup goalie is injured. He expects to be in Calgary a very short time and then...

REVIEW: Return to Embthwaite Farm (The Mowbray Sisters Book 1) by Kate Hewitt

Welcome to Embthwaite Farm, a charming English home in North Yorkshire, belonging to the fractured Mowbray family…

When Rachel Mowbray left behind her family farm in North Yorkshire at eighteen, she never planned on returning. But when her ex-childhood sweetheart calls and insists she return due to her father’s declining health, she travels north. Every moment home reminds Rachel why she left—her sister Harriet is both hostile and cold, her father barely communicates with anyone, and the house...

REVIEW: Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison

Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly…something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.

Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given specia...

REVIEW: Rumaysa: A Fairytale by Radiya Hafiza

Step into a Once Upon a Time where anything is possible . . . Radiya Hafiza’s enchanting and funny debut weaves together three stories, spinning the classic fairytale to show that anyone can be a hero.

‘Rumaysa, Rumaysa, let down your hijab!’

For as long as she can remember Rumaysa has been locked away in her tower, forced to spin straw into gold for the evil Witch, unable to leave. Until one day, after dropping a hijab out of her small tower-window, Rumaysa realizes how she might be able to e...

REVIEW: Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place.

Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain ...