Jane Litte's Blog, page 9

REVIEW: New Adventures in Space Opera edited by Jonathan Strahan

In “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance,” a cloud-based contractor finds a human war criminal clinging to the hull of the ship. The clones of “All the Colors You Thought Were Kings,” about to attend their coming-of-age ceremony, are also plotting treason. During “A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime,” two outlaws go on the run after stealing a device from a space cult.

Take a faster-than-light trip to the future. Discover where memes rise and fall in moments. Here are the new and adventu...

REVIEW: Through the Mist by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Two women disturb the dark history of a deceptively quiet postwar Cornwall village in a haunting novel by the bestselling author of A Feather on the Water and The Woman on the Orient Express.

It’s winter 1947 when newlyweds Ellen and Tony Wylde move into an abandoned Cornish farmhouse overlooking the sea. For both, it’s a new beginning in the country, and together they’re bringing Carreg Cottage back to life. Yet Ellen can’t hide a creeping unease. There’s the ominous iconography painted on th...

REVIEW: The Winged Tiara by J’nell Ciesielski

Diamonds and danger dazzle in Ciesielski’s latest enchanting romp through post-war Europe as estranged spouses and jewel thieves hunt an elusive Valkyrie tiara.

November 12, 1918. It was a match made in champagne-soaked heaven, but all too soon the bubbles dried up, and Esme Fox awakens the morning after celebrating the end of the Great War to find herself shockingly and accidentally married. She gathers her belongings and slips out before her new husband can stop her. After all, she knows i...

Review: Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland

Avra Helvaçi, former field agent of the Arasti Ministry of Intelligence, has accidentally stolen the single most expensive secret in the world?and the only place to flee with a secret that big is the open sea.To find a buyer with deep enough pockets, Avra must ask for help from his on-again, off-again ex, the pirate Captain Teveri az-Haffar. They are far from happy to see him, but together, they hatch a take the information to the isolated pirate republic of the Isles of Lost Souls, fence ...

REVIEW: Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis

Dear Beth Revis,

Full Speed to a Crash Landing is the first in a series of three novellas. Ada Lamarr is a space scavenger – looting ghost ships and crashed ships for anything valuable enough to sell. But maybe there’s more to her than that? We’ll have to see.

As the story begins, Ada is running out of air. Her ship, Glory, has a hole in the hull. She’s sent out a distress signal to a nearby ship, the Halifax, explaining she has no life support or electrics and is on the last available air in he...

REVIEW: Mississippi Swindle by Shad White

How America’s youngest state auditor uncovered the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the nation’s poorest state

This riveting exposé details how a small team of auditors and investigators, led by the youngest State Auditor in the country, uncovered a brazen scheme where the powerful stole millions in welfare funds from the poor in a sprawling conspiracy that stretched from Mississippi to Malibu.

Well-connected donors, highly placed officials, and popular public figures divert...

Review: Gods and Monsters by Rachel Langella (Carnival of Mysteries)

Welcome, Traveler, to Errante Ame’s Carnival of Mysteries!

What you see before you is no mere vagabond circus. Indeed, our show is full of wonders and delights that will leave you breathless, but whether that is with amazement or dread depends entirely upon you. We are unlike any other band of creatures you have ever encountered — and you few brave souls who choose to step beyond your mundane expectations and join us may witness sights beyond your wildest imaginings.

So sit back, relax, and let...

REVIEW: Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend by MJ Wassmer

White Lotus meets Kevin Wilson in this whip-smart social satire about a man who finds himself trapped on an island resort after the sun explodes, and suddenly must choose whether to save himself from the chaos, or help the fellow guests make it off the island alive…

Vacation Checklist:

Pack swim trunks.

Apply sunscreen.

Survive the apocalypse?

Professional underachiever Dan Foster is finally taking a vacation. Sure, his life has been average at best, and yeah, he’s never quite lived up to his ...

REVIEW: A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

Cordelia knows her mother is . . . unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms—there are no secrets in this house—and her mother doesn’t allow Cordelia to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother’s beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him.

But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mother...

Review: Joe Country (Slough House Book) by Mick Herron

If Spook Street is where spies live, Joe Country is where they go to die.

In Slough House, the London outpost for disgraced MI5 spies, memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him an outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.

Meanwhile, in Regent’s Park, Diana Taverne...