Reading In/Out 11/27/2026

I finally have something to say!!!

Since I last bothered to post a Reading In/Out, I have finished 4 books! I told you reading a bunch at the same time would end up with me finishing them all at once.

OUT

Hearts In Circulation by Sarah Monzon - One would think, based on the characters in this book that are librarians, that Sarah Monzon is herself a librarian. It says nothing like that in her biography. She is a navy wife who gets moved around a lot, so it would be difficult to do that. Nevertheless, her grasp on what librarianship is like is spot on. This was a cute, nearly spiceless romance. Haley is the circulating librarian in a little town surrounded by tiny towns with no libraries. The mayor of Little Creek donates an ancient rattle-trap bus to the library to be the bookmobile. Haley is expected to drive it around to the tiny towns to provide library services. On her first trip out, the bus croaks on the side of the road and then there is a rock slide. She is trapped in the teensy town of Turky Grove until a) her bus gets fixed and b) the rock slide is removed from blocking the roads out of town. There is no hotel in town, so she has to stay with the mechanic, Levi, who is grumpy, to put it nicely. Levi doesn't really get on with people. Too much talking, too much cologne, too much touching, too much everything. But Haley doesn't make him want to crawl out of his skin. Well, not after the first night when he lost it and screamed, "Why can't you just. Stop. Talking." She figured out he wasn't uncomfortable because he didn't know what to say. He was uncomfortable because she was saying too much. She ended up staying there for a week before the roads got cleared and Levi got the bus fixed. A lot can change in a week.

One of the things that drives me nuts about romance novels is when the third act calamity is a result of bad communication. If one person had just told the other this one critical piece of information, they could have avoided the whole conflict. That feels like cheating. In this one, Haley is the recipient of a replacement liver. She is trying very hard to earn the second chance at life she was given because someone else died. She has already decided that when this liver craps out, she won't get another replacement. She doesn't want to take that away from some other 12 year old girl. Therefore, she doesn't want to get into a long-term relationship, with Levi or anyone, because she will just go on and die and leave them. What she doesn't know is that livers are now able to be donated from a living donor. Levi learns this and is determined to make her see that he would donate his liver to her, or whatever else she needs. See? This is a legitimate problem. She has told him why she doesn't want to get serious. Communication is happening. There was a different problem that needed solving.

It was a pretty good story, for a light and fluffy romance.

First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen by Charlie Lovett - This one was kind of disappointing. It has the whole 2-timelines thing going on and each chapter jumps back and forth between the two. In the current day, we have Sophie who is the youngest daughter of a couuntry gentleman in England. Her favorite uncle has just died. Fell down the steps in front of his London apartment. He is the one who introduced her to books and reading and taught her how to appreciate books. His apartment was filled with books. But when she goes to the apartment she has now inherited, the books are gone. Everything is gone. Sold to cover his debts. In 1796, we follow Jane Austen who has just made the acquaintance of Richard Mansfield. He is 80 to her 20, but they become very fast friends and encourage each other's writing. When he dies suddenly, she remembers what he told her - never stop writing. Sophie meets a guy looking for a copy of the second edition of Mansfield's book. Then another guy calls her and threatens her to find the book or else. Sophie is convinced this is the guy who helped her uncle fall down the stairs. She begins the hunt for the mystery book and finds the connection to Jane Austen. The plot is terribly convoluted and I can't even begin to make it make sense here. There is a nice little love triangle, which I abhor.

Here's where it went sideways for me. Firstly, Sophie is kind of an idiot. First, she shrugs off the first guy she's had anything like real feelings for, even when he comes back from his European year off to be with her. Secondly, she dives into bed with the cute guy who wants the book that the other guy is threatening her for. "He's nice to me, so I'll give the book to him if I find it." Even when she finds out he lied about where he went to college. Ugh. I guess this is what comes of a man writing a female character. Thirdly, Lovett sent Jane, Cassandra, and their mother to Rev. Mansfield's funeral. Women did not attend funerals at that time. Cassandra did not even go to Jane's funeral in Westminster. She had to watch the funeral procession from the window of the house they were renting, while their brothers carried the coffin. This seems like a pretty egregious thing to get wrong. I guess it pushes the story forward, but ugh.

I'm supposed to read another Charlie Lovett book this year because it's on my 10 Oldest Books list. That will have to wait until I have forgotten this one, so I don't judge it too harshly before I've even started.

Faithless In Death by J. D. Robb - I was facing an entire 7 hours in the basement, alone, doing inventory. I decided an audiobook was in order. I liked the one I listened to in this series, so I decided to go ahead and get another one from the library. I tell you, I listened to 70% of it that day in the basement. I was off the next day and then I ended up with a 4-day weekend. No way was I going to wait four days to finish it. I listened while I did my annual organization of the files.

Eve Dallas is a murder investigator with the NYPSD. I don't know what the S is for, but it's like 2070, so who knows. I'm sure it's in one of the books somewhere. It doesn't matter. She gets a call to a probable homicide of an artist who appears to have been bashed over the head with a piece of marble that she was carving. This that and the other thing lead us to a cult. It's the regular kind of cult. Religious extremists who believe that women are property and created for the express purpose of keeping house and raising the next generation of cultists. They also send LGBTQIA+ people to The Island. They have literally bought an island and created their own country in order to have a place to imprison and torture people until they are no longer queer. How did the artist fit into all this? She was in a relationship with the daughter of one of the prominent members of this cult, who was engaged to marry a high-profile (and wealthy) lawyer. If their relationship came out and he called off the wedding, the "organization" would be in danger of collapsing from lack of money. But who did the deed?

I enjoyed this one, too. There is enough witty banter to lighten it up a bit. I'll probably listen to more.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown - I finally finished it! I knew this long, snowy, weekend would help me out. In case you forgot, this was the January Book Club book, but that meeting got cancelled due to weather that didn't actually come in until 10:00 that night. But we didn't know that at the time, so now it's been rescheduled for February.

ANYHOO, in this dystopian society on some other planet (Mars maybe?) Darrow is a Red. Reds live underground and mine some precious thing so that one day, humans can live on Mars. Darrow's wife, Eo, becomes a martyr to try to get Reds to see that they are just slaves to the other colors. Red is the lowest color. At this point it feels a lot like Brave New World. After she dies, Darrow risks his own death by cutting her body down and burying her. Sure enough he gets hanged as well. Except then he wakes up. He didn't die. And now he's being offered a chance to live the dream that Eo dreamed. He is being made into a Gold so he can go and compete in the Institute. This is how the Golds decide which children will be made into politicians, generals, and leaders of all kinds. The Institute is like The Hunger Games on steroids. All the kids who make it through the Passage (where they are paired up and they have to fight until one lives and one dies) are then divided into houses. Each house has to have a Primus. When a student gets 5 "bars" for leaderly behavior, they are Primus. Then the houses have to fight each other. Except some of the people watching the game aren't playing fair. Shocking no one. Darrow goes through a lot and a lot of kids die.

It's a pretty good story. The ending pissed me off, but I understand it. It's really the only way it could have gone.

So okay, I had a LOT to say.

IN

Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater - I haven't started it yet, but it's in my couch purse with a bookmark all picked out. I plan to start this evening if I don't fall asleep first. I'm excited about it. The setting is Regency England. Dora was cursed by a faerie and since then she has no sense of fear or embarrassment, which regularly leads her to do things that embarrass her family. A really high lord who is also barely tolerated in society because of his uncouth behavior finds out about her curse and she gets dragged into fae issues she would rather not be involved in. It's also a romance, so we'll see how that goes.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - Still working on this one. Slowly. Very slowly.

Bonded In Death by J. D. Robb - This is the one that came out 2 books before the one I listened to in November. The one I listened to isn't out yet. The one after it still has a bunch of holds on the audiobook. So, I've downloaded this one for my next audiobook. The cover is pretty cool.

I'm glad I didn't have to say this whole thing out loud. My voice would be toast. I'm going to go rest my fingers now.