Reading: SMALL SPACES - Katherine Arden

1st Line: "October in East Evansburg, and the last warm sun of the year slanted red through the sugar maples."

Review: A re-read of Katherine Arden's middle-grade debut, in preparation for reading the entire quartet now that book four is out - and what a joy to find I liked book one even more the second time around. Ollie Adler is a quiet, sad eleven-year-old girl with a chip on her shoulder, still grieving the death of her mother the year prior in a tragic accident. Highly intelligent and good-natured at heart, she's grown introverted and sullen, nose often buried in a book - which makes it irk her like crazy when, one day, she comes across a semi-hysterical woman about to throw a book in a river. The woman, making no sense to the young girl, claims she must destroy the book, but book-lover Ollie ends up swiping it instead, escaping on her bicycle. The small, very old book, Small Spaces, tells the very creepy story of The Smiling Man, who seems to exchange souls for favors - and when a field trip the next day finds Ollie's class in serious trouble, sinister happenings too similar to her book to be coincidence, Ollie must band together with two of her classmates (the flighty Coco, and hockey champ Brian) to find out what's going on. Especially when Ollie's broken watch - which belonged to her mother, and hasn't worked since she died - starts sending messages to the girl, warning her of danger.

Creepy, fun, and solidly plotted, this is such a terrific spooky read for anyone of any age, featuring a fast-paced writing and three classmates who grow into great friends, whom I can't wait to finally follow in the remaining books.  4.5/5 stars

Reading: A FATAL BOOKING - Victoria Gilbert

1st Line: "The only thing constant in life is change."

Review: Book three in Gilbert's Booklovers B&B Mystery series finds Charlotte Reed - owner of Chapters, the book-themed bed-and-breakfast in Beaufort, North Carolina - a bit at odds when about to greet a group of book club members coming to stay ... who seem to have all their events and menus planned ahead, leaving a lot less work for her! Led by a former colleague from Charlotte's teaching days, the group is focused on kid-lit and children's classics, events for which include a tea party directly out of Alice in Wonderland. But right off, Charlotte realizes the atmosphere among the group members themselves is anything but cute and cuddly, much of the animosity focused on a particularly loud, opinionated and shady jewelry store owner who seems to delight in rubbing everyone the wrong way - and when she turns up poisoned in the lush gardens at Chapters, Charlotte has to take on the role of sleuth again if she wants to get her own happily ever after.

One thing that makes this series so original is that author Victoria Gilbert has expertly woven in a backstory that includes espionage, in the form of Charlotte's great-aunt (who left Charlotte the B&B in her will) as a spy, back in day, with Charlotte's neighbor Ellen her former handler. It lends more credence to why Charlotte and Ellen want to investigate these crimes, if not why they have a knack for it (in fact, a third character related to the spy game background - Gavin Howard - was introduced in book two). But here, I really felt like the spy stuff was pushed more to the background, letting the current mystery shine, and that - combined with particularly strong plotting that makes you really suspect everyone in the book group, at one point or another - makes this my favorite in the series so far. And as much as I enjoyed the first two, that's saying a lot.  4/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

Reading: THINGS WE DO IN THE DARK - Jennifer Hillier

1st Line: "There's a time and a place for erect nipples, but the back of a Seattle police car definitely isn't it."

Review: Paris Peralta, a successful businesswoman married to decades-older actor/comedian Jimmy Peralta - currently enjoying a major comeback that has him back in the spotlight - isn't having her best day when found in her husband's bathroom, covered in blood and holding a straight razor, with Jimmy just a few feet away in a bathtub full of blood and water, dead. Immediately taken into custody as the potential killer, Paris's arrest is the stuff of front-page headlines, not just in Seattle but around the world. Jimmy was beloved, which of course now makes Paris hated - seen as a gold digger just after her dead husband's money - but oddly enough, what's really eating away at Paris is that the international attention she's now got might reveal an even deeper, darker secret from her past, tied to her roots in Canada and a woman named Ruby Reyes. Reyes herself is a convicted murderer, having stabbed a man to death twenty-five years prior. And now Ruby is up for parole ... and sending Paris letters, demanding money to keep the younger woman's secret. A lot of money.

Jennifer Hillier's latest, flipping back and forth in time and place, traces the story of these two women and the history of violence that connects them. It's a mystery-thriller that, for me, is a mystery first - the pacing, at times, coming off a bit slow for a thriller - and while the twists were not all that hard to figure out well in advance, as a mystery it does keep you guessing: who - or what - is Paris? Who set the basement fire that burned a young woman to death? What really happened the night Ruby Reyes was supposed to have gone whacko with a knife? It's my first Hillier novel, a mystery marketed as a thriller and to me a 4.5-star mystery wrapped up in a 3.5-star thriller, so am going to split the difference. Either way, definitely worth your time!  4/5 stars

Reading: THE DAUGHTER OF DOCTOR MOREAU - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

1st Line: "They'd be arriving that day, the two gentlemen, their boat gliding through the forest of mangroves."

Review: It's the last nineteenth century in Mexico, and far from the problems plaguing the Yucatan peninsula, the young beauty Carlota lives an insular live on the isolated jungle estate of her father, a doctor making great strides in his medical research. She gets along graciously with all the inhabitants of her home, including her father's stern yet reliable majordomo, who runs things overall for her father, and helps as she can (when he'll let her) with her father's work with the hybrids, who live behind the great house in camps beyond the short stone wall. But Dr. Moreau is only able to do his work by the financing of the Lizaldes, who own the house and all its property, and have been funding Dr. Moreau's work for years now, growing ever more impatient to see the results the scientist had promised them. When the young son of the Lizalde family, Eduardo, comes to see his father's property and immediately takes a fancy to the vibrant, beautiful and enchanting Carlota, his advances begin a chain of events that will have Carlota questioning her father, his sanity, his work, the safe and peaceful life she's enjoyed for so long ... and the hybrids; not just their origins, their role in the grand scheme of things, but their very existence.

This is my third Silvia Moreno-Garcia read (after Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night, both favorites), and in the first two books I marveled in her ability to not only write in a variety of genres, but also to create characters that seem to leap flesh-and-blood off the page from the book's first paragraph. Her research is also always impeccable, messages about race, classism, feminism woven into the text poignantly. In this, her reimagining of the classic H. G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau (and no, you don't have to have read that book to read/enjoy this one), all these traits sing as loudly, making it beautifully written ... but for me, the book came up slightly lacking in its heroine. In the previous novels I mentioned reading, her lead character in each started off mild-mannered, even subservient; a woman caught up in the constraints of her time and place in history, acting how women were "supposed to act" until the circumstances of the book's story made her take charge of both herself and her life - making both of these heroines in the two previous novels women of great strength by The End. Here, along with the pacing feeling a bit slow at times, for me Carlota remains more caterpillar than butterfly throughout, the events of the book certainly putting her through a lot ... but then tissue always appearing when the tears come again, Carlota remaining (overall) stronger in general yet somehow still secondary to the man/men in charge, who she turns to to make the decisions (the very end improves on this, thankfully). Still so, so many great things about this novel - still a recommended read - but between Carlota's arc of growth not feeling complete and the sometimes awkward pacing, it somehow makes the book feel a bit incomplete and awkward as well.  3/5 stars

Reading: A LITTLE BIT COUNTRY - Brian D. Kennedy

1st Line: "Here's the thing about writing a good country song: It's really fricking hard."

Review: Brian D. Kennedy's debut novel is a heartwarming, funny, near-perfect m/m love story that begins when a 17-year-old gay country singer in Illinois, Emmett Maguire, takes the first steps to his music career when he lands a summer job at Wanda World, a theme park honoring (and owned by) country-western singing legend Wanda Jean Stubbs (think Dollywood/Dolly Parton, respectively). Traveling to Jackson Hole, Tennessee, Emmett learns right off that show biz isn't all glamour and autographs - never more so then when, dressed as a donkey's ass, he literally runs into tall, blond, well-built drink of water Luke Barnes, who appears the epitome of country-western singing hunk.

The irony is that Luke Barnes can't stand country music. He's the grandson of Verna Rose, a former country singer and and best friend to none other than Wanda Jean Stubbs herself, who left the business and the public eye many years before in the face of a huge scandal, finally passing away in obscurity. Luke has a big chip on his shoulder for the industry over his grandmother, whom he dearly loved, and when his mother's medical bills force him to find work in a restaurant at Wanda World (Luke's first step to his own dream of becoming a chef), that and Luke's deeply-closeted homosexuality make for an unhappy, stressed and sullen young man.

When Emmett and Luke cross paths again, Luke can't deny a spark. Emmett, for his part, is already so infatuated he's written a love song about Luke. But can a closeted, goodhearted hunk in denim ad flannel, forced to grow up fast (and deal with the stress that entails) and who can't stand country music, and a young, talented singer-songwriter who wants to be country music's first gay superstar, even build a friendship - let alone something more? And might Wanda Jean - Emmett's lifelong idol - really show up, unannounced, at one of the Wanda World shows he performs in, as she's sometimes wont to do?

A Little Bit Country quickly made it to my list of top ten favorite reads of 2022 - and may well be the best, most "fuzzy" romance I've ever read, period. Emmett, Luke, even the supporting characters come off a hundred percent authentic - even Wanda Jean Stubbs, when we do meet her, could have been easily over-done into caricature, but Kennedy makes her as warm and human as the others people populating this charming world. Everything here works; the romance grows organically from the characters and who they are, both humor and pathos perfectly balanced, and I particularly loved how the romance was part of the book but not 100% its focus; Emmett, Luke and company have lives and desires and issues outside the romance, and all are intertwined ... just as in real life (yet another reason the book is so terrific). You'll laugh out loud - you'll shed a tear or two at the end - you'll learn to appreciate big hair - this one has it all. A beautiful, beautifully-written and insanely sweet story ... and if this is his debut, all I can say is that Brian D. Kennedy has one heck of a career ahead of him.  5/5 stars

Reading: BIG NATE: DESTINED FOR AWESOMENESS - Mitch Watson, Elliott Owen & Sarah Allan (authors), based on characters created by Lincoln Peirce

1st Line: " 'Hey!' "

Review: Full disclosure: I am a HUGE fan of Big Nate and his world. Had I a bit more nerve, I would have been Nate as a child (though maybe a bit smarter about things), so between the sarcasm, narcissism, bad jokes, worse plots, and his battle with school teachers, administrators, and pretty much anyone in authority, I was geared for this one. Have read at least a dozen or more collections of Lincoln Peirce's about this irascible, slightly nuts sixth-grader over the last few years, so was ready.

But this one's different; it's actually the first of a series of books based on the new Paramount+ animated series starring Nate and his friends and family. Instead of a collection of comic strips, here you have full-color panels laying out three episodes from the show, complete with comic speech bubbles. Not having Paramount+, I haven't seen the show, so seeing all these beloved characters not just in color but in 3D was a bit jarring (not in a bad way). Further, instead of three-panel or Sunday paper vignettes that basically tell a single joke, here Nate's antics play out in three fully-narrative stories, each episode with its own beginning, middle and end. 

The Legend of the Gunting (probably my favorite), about Nate's herculean efforts to avoid one more detention for the week, is funny and goes nicely nuts with a new kid in school who makes Norman Bates look like Shirley Temple. Go Nate! It's Your Birthday, which went a bit over-the-top for me in regards to what I'd think even Nate would try to get away with, outlines the perils of (purposefully) misinterpreting how your dad tells you to use his credit card. Lastly, CATastrophe! is about Nate's crippling fear of felines ... and when he has to deal with one first-hand, in order to get a certain girl's attention and a class project completed.

Well done and a fun read ... but what blew my mind was when, not too far into the book, I realized how much the images reminded me of my own childhood obsession with ViewMaster reels. Between the speech bubbles and pop-out words to express action and the 3D animation, it was like clicking through an old ViewMaster again, and the warm memories that THAT brought alone only added to what was already a funny, enjoyable, action-packed read. (Available August 30)  4/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.