Goodreads Update July 2020

When you sit around looking at a computer all day while waiting for the phone to ring, it's easy to find books to add to your TBR. Let's see what fun things I found to add this month.

The Deep by Rivers Solomon - These mermaids/sirens are descended from pregnant African slaves thrown overboard during the passage from Africa. The collective history of these people is so dark and troubling, all of them have forgotten in except for one, Netu. This little book is only 166 pages, but I hear it's great.

The Switch by Beth O'Leary - This is the follow-up (though I suspect unrelated) to The Flat Share I read earlier this year. The premise sounds even cuter than the first book. Leena is on a forced sabbatical from work, so she runs to her grandmother Eileen. Eileen is newly single and almost 80. Leena proposes a home switch. Leena will stay in cozy Yorkshire and keep up the house for 2 months, while Eileen goes to stay in Leena's London flat and look for love.

Betwixt by Darynda Jones - Here we have another house story. In this one, Defiance Dayne goes to Salem, Mass when she finds out a complete stranger died and left her a house. She decides to stay in the house for 3 days to try it out, but people keep showing up asking her to help find their lost objects. They think she's a witch? The supporting characters are a pesky neighbor, a rude cat, and a hot handyman. Sounds like fun, and I do like Darynda Jones, anyway.

Masquerade and Middlecrest Abbey by Abigail Wilson - Judging by the summary, this book is full of secrets. Lord Torrington is a spy for the crown. While acting as a highway robber, he attacks the wrong coach and has to propose the unconscious young woman at his feet to protect his identity and her reputation. The young woman in question has an illegitimate son whose identity she must keep hidden. There is murder and intrigue, but this is inevitably a romance. It sounds pretty fabulous.

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi - The summary of this one is kind of vague. Pet is a monster hunter, but in this town, monsters don't exist anymore. Or so everyone thinks. Is it possible to fight a monster no one will admit exists? This is a YA book.

Dancing With Mr. Darcy edited by Sarah Waters - I'm super excited about this book. First, it is all short stories inspired by Jane Austen or Chawton House. Second, this book was spawned by a contest for the best stories and judged by Sarah Waters. Third, one of the forwards was written by Rebecca Smith, who is Jane Austen's great-great-great-great-great niece. Apparently, this book has been put for 10 years. How am I just now hearing about it!?

Docile by K.M. Szpara - I have reservations about this one. It's a bit of a science-fiction literary novel. In this world, people take a drug called Dociline to turn them into Dociles to work of debt. Being a Docile means you do whatever is bid you by the people who own your contract. The Dociline helps you forget what you've done and what you've been through. Elisha's mother was a Docile and suffered the rest of her life. Elisha refuses to take the same route, but the family's account is owned by the family that invented Dociline. Then it becomes a battle between the two men. It doesn't sound very uplifting. Maybe this will wait til my mental health isn't so precarious.

Fortune and Glory by Janet Evanovich - Well, after 26 books with numbers in the title, it looks like Evanovich finally ran out of cutesy titles. Oh wait. It does say Tantalizing Twenty-Seven at the bottom. Whatever. It doesn't matter what thisis even about. I will devour it as soon as I get my grubby paws on it.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moren0-Garcia - Look at this cover!!! Look at it! Not even the fact that this is supposed to be a haunted house horror novel turned me away from ordering this beauty as soon as I could. I'll admit, I'm a little afraid of it, but it's so gorgeous! I'm a cover slut, I know.

Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton - Speaking of beautiful covers! I think this is told in two timelines. Elisa, who left Cuba in 1958 during political revolution, wants her granddaughter Marisol to spread her ashes in Havana. When Marisol goes there in 2017, she learns some shocking family secrets and starts to relive some of her grandmother's experiences. But also. What a gorgeous cover!

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow - Ok. Cute play on Once and Future King for a title. This book combines the suffragette movement with the history of witches in Salem, Massachusetts and it sounds like a fun ride.

Hell in the Heartland by Jax Miller - This is a true crime book about an event that happened very close to me. Two teen girls were having a sleepover. The next day, the parents went to pick up their daughter and the house had been burnt to the ground. The parents were dead and the two girls were missing. This happened on New Years Eve 1999. I remember this event and the search for the girls. This crime was only solved within the last year. Possible because of the author's investigation. One of my friends is a cousin to the friend that was staying the night.

The Bookseller by Mark Pryor - This is a mystery set in the gritty underbelly of Paris, which is probably still more interesting than, say, the gritty underbelly of Detroit. Hugo Marston is the head of security at the U.S. Embassy and is investigating the kidnapping of a bookseller who was a holocaust survivor turned Naxi hunter. It may be too noir for my tastes, but with a cover like that I had to check it out.

The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker - I recently had a book buying opportunity. (Read: I got my husband an anniversary gift, but he didn't get me one, so I bought myself some books.) My sister had recently talked to me about this book, so I nabbed it.

Exhalation by Ted Chiang - This collection of short stories has won or been nominated for a boatload of awards recently. I've been hearing a lot about it, so I decided to finally add it to my TBR.

The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas - This is a collection of novellas in the Throne of Glass series. I think you're supposed to read this between books 2 and 3, but I read book 3 first. I'm pretty sure that's ok. At least I won't run across any spoilers for later books this way.

The Other We Moore by Wes Moore - This is about two guys with the same name, one black, one white. They are close to the same age and in the same town, but they have very divergent lives.

The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur - This is another historical mystery from the author of The Silence of Bones, which I liked a lot. It's set in Korea, but this summary doesn't say when. It doesn't come out until next April, but I'm going to put it on my list so I can keep an eye out for it.

Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall - This book is about the intersectionality of feminism and race/poverty/sexuality/education/medical care/etc. There are several sections of women who are left out of feminist discussions as if they are below the privileges they are fighting for because wealthy white feminists already have those things.

Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne - Last month I read Donne's The Stars We Steal which is a retelling of Persuasion set in space. I didn't hate it. Then I found out she had previously written this one, which is a retelling of Jane Eyre set in the same "world". I'm pretty excited about that.

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline - This is the long-awaited follow up to Ready Player One. Well, I say long-awaited. I'm not sure anyone knew there was going to be a sequel. I just meant it's been a long time since the first one came out. But now that we know about it, we are awaiting it. The first one was about a kid in OKC who lived his life in the virtual world Oasis, which is what most people do because real life is terrible. Then he enters a contest to win the estate of the founder of the Oasis, but the government wants that for itself, so he has to go on the run. It's a fun book. It will be interesting to see where it goes next.

Magic City by Jewell Parker Rhodes - This is another novel about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. You may be able to tell from the cover that this was published in the 90's. 1998 to be exact. Basically it's a fictional retelling of the events that sparked the massacre, told from the perspectives of the two people in that elevator. I am suddenly obsessed with Race Massacre literature.

The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon - This has a cute premise. The main character created a popular dating app. When she finds out her boyfriend is also seeing several other women, they team up and decide to swear off dating for 6 months and focus on themselves. Since this is a romance book, it appears she will have some trouble making it the whole six months.

** Maud's Line** by Margaret Verble - Maud lives on Cherokee parcel land in Oklahoma in 1928. Life is rough and boring. Then a stranger comes to town, and Maud has to make some decisions. It's not set in a very nice time or place, so I imagine it's depressing, but maybe it's a romance? Hard to tell.

Check Please Vol. 2 by Ngozi Ukazu - I read volume 1 of this last month. That volume follows Eric through the first two years of college. Presumably this follows him through two more. He's a figure skater turned hockey player. He's also a baker and gay. It's a very cute story and gives all the warm fuzzies.

The Year of Dangerous Days by Nicholas Griffin - Why am I so attracted to this kind of stuff? Am I into disaster porn? What was that one phrase about being interested in cities that have declined? I can't remember. Anyway, here's another book about that.

Recommended For You by Laura Silverman - This might be YA question mark? It's about teenagers, so probably? Shoshanna works at a bookstore where the boss offers a vacation to the sales person with the most sales. Shoshanna would normally have that locked down, but the new guy, Jake, is selling almost the same amount. And he doesn't even read!

Glasstown by Isabel Greenberg - This is a graphic novel about the Bronte siblings' imaginary town they created as siblings. I have another book about that, but I haven't read it yet. They should probably be paired together. That would be fun.

Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs by Jennifer Finney Boylan - Boylan is extremely interesting. She's written both fiction and non-fiction of various things. Her fiction is pretty gothic. A couple of decades ago she had a gender switch operation. That was pretty splashy at the time. You know how I feel about good dogs.

Neon Girls by Jennifer Worley - Worley was a stripper for awhile to pay for education quickly. She just so happened to work at a club that was run by a unionized group of strippers. It was a peepshow type club, so there was no contact with the viewers and the strippers discussed feminist theory and politics backstage. I'm intrigued.

To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters - This is the sequel to To Have and to Hoax that I just added to my TBR last month I think. I've heard they are witty and fun romance novels set in the Regency era. Just my thing!

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole - Up to this point, Alyssa Cole has only published romances featuring black main characters. This one is a thriller, also featuring black main characters. A BookTuber I watch recently read it and was amazed at the amount of microaggressions against black people that was included and wondered if white readers would even recognize it. I took that as a challenge. I want to know if I will see it.

That's all. It took me so long to type this post, that I actually added to the TBR as I went along. Oy! Anyway, have any new books caught your eye lately? Tell me about them.