CBR18 Book 32: "Bromantasy" by Máire Rocha

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 3 stars

Thanks to G.B Putnam's Sons and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 26th. 

Juniper O'Reilly shares a house with his totally platonic best friend, Mo Elthorn, and they run a farm together. Juniper has a tendency to get into bar brawls, while Mo holds him back and takes him home afterwards. One memorable evening, however, Juniper gets into a fight with the wrong guy and incapacitates a henchman enough that he is forced to take said henchman's place on an epic quest (opting out means death). Mo is obviously not going to let his extremely platonic BFF go off on a monster-hunting quest by himself. Especially since Juniper has absolutely no idea how to survive in the wild, hates sleeping outside, away from his comfortable bed and cosy house, and wouldn't be able to light a campfire if his life depended on it.

The quest Juniper and Mo have to try to complete (because they'll be killed if they quit) is locating a dragon who has been terrorising the nearby villages. They are not the only ones looking for this wicked creature. Among their rivals are Bill Bronson, whom Juniper hates (I'm not sure it was ever specified why) and also the dashing Prince Edward. Juniper gets quite star-struck by the prince, but Mo is less impressed. 

When Juniper and Mo discover that at least one of the creatures flying about, setting fire to nearby forests and outbuildings, is just a child, things get even more complicated. Mo is not about to let anyone, royalty or not, hunt or hurt an innocent (if rather inadvertently destructive) creature, and he's determined to get the baby dragon to safety. Even if it means breaking the terms of their mandatory quest.

According to the blurb: "Bromantasy is a cozy, queer fantasy about the mortifying ordeal of being known by your totally platonic best friend and the epic quest that might force you to confront the truth."  Juniper and Mo spend most of the book totally pining and lusting for one another, while also very studiously not talking about said attraction, or the misunderstandings that have arisen in their relationship since Mo took off for a couple of months about ten years ago, leaving Juniper absolutely bereft. 

Juniper is truly terrible at trekking and camping, and also seems to have the common sense of a puppy that's been knocked over the head a bit too often. He has his utterly bull-headed dislike of Bill Bronson, but otherwise seems to be taken in by anyone, no matter how scheming they obviously are. He keeps wanting to do the right thing, and more often than not makes things worse instead. 

I didn't find this book particularly cosy, and the fact that Juniper has the POV throughout, a character I found exasperating at best and downright stupid at worst, did not help. I think it's supposed to be a literary romp; I cared very little for the plot, and the stakes never felt all that serious. 

There's a lot of hijinks throughout, and as previously mentioned, if Juniper can blunder in and make a situation worse than it was before, that's what's going to happen. By about 35% in, it became clear that this book was never going to be more than a 3-star read for me, and I debated whether I should DNF it or not. Instead, I skim-read the rest of the story, mainly to check if the plot gets any more engaging later on. 

This is probably a perfectly fun and entertaining book for some readers, but it just didn't work for me. 

Judging a book by its cover: Don't be fooled by the cat in the lower right corner of the cover. While there is a cat in the book, it stays behind on Mo and Juniper's farm when they go off questing. So it's not like it plays a prominent part in the story. The baby dragon needs to be instructed that cats are "friends, not food", though, which was pretty cute. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 64: "The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman

Page count: 382 pages

Rating: 5 stars

CBR17 Bingo: White (a book with a white cover)

In a charming retirement village somewhere in the south of England, four elderly individuals solve cold cases for fun. Retired nurse, Joyce, is the last to be inducted into "The Thursday Murder Club", as they are in need of some of her medical expertise in trying to solve their most recent case. Led by the formidable Elizabeth, who used to be a spy, aided and abetted by Ibrahim, a retired psychologist and Ron, a former trade union leader, the club used to have a fourth member, who co-founded the group with Elizabeth. Penny, a former Detective Inspector, is now in a coma, but is watched over daily by her husband and visited frequently by Elizabeth with updates about all their investigations. Joyce, who wasn't really sure she was going to settle in at Coopers Chase, happily shares her medical knowledge, and while she is clearly a very different woman from Penny, her cheerful demeanour, her excellent baking skills, and her wits make her a valuable new member of the group. 

Investigating cold cases takes a back seat to investigating an actual murder when Tony Curran, one of the developers who built Coopers Chase, is found bludgeoned to death in his home, with a photograph of some pretty shady characters left next to him. Now that he's dead, the other developer, Ian Ventham, has no one to oppose his plans to sell the retirement village and turn everything into luxury flats. He also wants to dig up the local graveyard and move all the bodies, to the horror of many of the long-time residents, whose family and friends are buried there. 

Having previously befriended Police Constable Donna de Freitas, recently transferred from London and is clearly rather bored with the routine tasks she's being given in the quiet country town. Thanks to some trickery from Elizabeth and Joyce, Donna is invited to join the murder investigation, shadowing the head investigator, DCI Chris Hudson. 

As the case progresses, it turns out that there is more than one individual with a motive to kill Tony Curran, and as often happens in these sorts of stories, his is not the only murder in need of solving by the end. 

By now, The Thursday Murder Club, published in 2020, has become a series of five novels and was recently turned into a Netflix movie with a very stacked cast. Because I didn't start reading the book until after the movie was announced, and I'd seen several trailers, my mental images of a lot of the characters matched up with their movie counterparts. For the most part, I think they cast the characters really well, with the notable exception of Pierce Brosnan, who is a very handsome man, but not even a little bit convincing as a former working-class labour rights champion. As my BFF Lydia says, Sean Bean was right there! 

Having now seen the film, I would strongly advise anyone who has read and likes (or loves) the book to skip it, because they had to cut so many corners, including several engaging subplots and change a bunch of stuff to cram it into a family-friendly Netflix film, and while it was well-acted, I was disappointed at the choices the filmmakers made. However, I suspect it's going to result in even bigger sales for Richard Osman, something I can't be disappointed about; he seems like a very clever and delightful man. 

I don't know exactly why it took me so long to read this, but I guess I should be grateful for the adaptation to finally make me pick the book up. I was pretty sure I was going to like it once I got around to it. I even gifted this and several of the sequels to my Dad some Christmases ago, based on other people's reviews, because he likes a good mystery novel. For the record, he was also disappointed by the second half of the movie. 

Despite featuring several rather grisly murders and a bunch of interconnecting mysteries, some of which go decades back, it's a very funny book, and I absolutely adore the characters. Not just our central four protagonists, either; there are so many minor supporting characters who give the story life and make it so very entertaining to read. Once I started reading, I could barely put the book down, and I also proceeded to read all the sequels over the course of a week in late August. I can't remember the last time I binge-read four books that fast. I just love hanging out with the characters and got genuinely emotional several times while reading the books. I'm very happy Osman has said he has many more adventures in store for Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron (not to forget Donna, Chris, Bogdan and importing supporting players). 

Judging a book by its cover: By now, it feels like every third mystery novel you see looks like this book, but this was the book that started the trend. So many other books with simple covers and similar fonts, just because Osman's book is so awesome. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 3: "Bookshops & Bonedust" by Travis Baldree

Page count: 356 pages

Audiobook length: 8 hrs, 1 min

Rating: 3.5 stars

Buzzwords 2025 Title Challenge: Contains punctuation

Twenty years before the events in Legends & Lattes, Viv is a young and relatively inexperienced mercenary, who gets badly injured fighting undead monsters while hunting for a powerful necromancer. Her mercenary band leave her in the quiet and mostly empty seaside town of Murk to heal up and recuperate. She worries that the group are going to leave her there, but thankfully, to take her mind off her fears, she encounters the local bookshop owner, who manages to persuade her (Viv has never exactly been a big reader) to buy a book, which she is surprised that she can barely put down. 

Soon a beautiful friendship is born. Viv spends most of her days hanging out in Fern the Ratkin's rather run-down store, trying to help her come up with ways to make the place a bit less dilapidated and more inviting to customers. Fern keeps giving Viv new books, and after having eagerly completed a few, Viv stops trying to pretend that reading isn't for her. There are some added complications involving a fierce gnome fishing for an invitation to Rackham, Viv's employer; a suspicious city guard captain, and the discovery of the corpse of the sinister fellow who Viv got into a very public fight with after he was rude to Fern's pet. 

Viv also befriends the local bakery owner, a cheerful dwarf who keeps bribing Viv with delicious baked goods. They develop the chastest of romances, which basically amounts to them talking walks, feeding the fish and holding hands occasionally. Both know that Viv isn't going to be staying in Murk for very long, so their flirtation has a definite end date. 

While Viv is worried that her time in Murk is going to be too uneventful and boring, some strange artefacts left behind by the dead fellow on the beach, turn out to be rather exciting and may have links to the necromancer that Viv's mercenary band were hunting. 

This was the December pick for my IRL book club, and we met in early January to discuss it. While most people liked it, a few people disliked it because they felt it was just too bland and uneventful to really hold their attention. Most of the readers agreed that the book was not without its flaws, but you don't read a book like this when you want to be overly critical and therefore they weren't too bothered. This, like Legends & Lattes is like candy for your brain, and the occasional plot inconsistency or lack of consistent world-building shouldn't distract from the silly cosiness of the read. The majority of us were in agreement that we liked Legends & Lattes more, and a few of the flaws with this book came from the fact that it was a prequel and therefore hampered by a few things already established in Baldree's first book. 

One of the readers pointed out that the way the book depicts what a great experience reading can be, and the way it opens Viv's eyes to adventures and new perspectives through reading is very pedagogical, and that a book where so much of the plot centres around books, how great hanging out in a bookshop, and reading can be, it will hopefully get more reluctant readers to try more books. Which can only be a good thing. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover of my paperback copy of this is in the same style as that of the first book, with more seaside elements and the mysterious book Viv finds very much the focal point. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR16 Book 35: "Ronja Rövardotter" (Ronia the Robber's Daughter) by Astrid Lindgren

Page count: 235 pages

Rating: 5 stars

CBR16 Sweet Books: Cozy (this was my absolutely most favourite book as a child)

Nowhere Books Bingo: Has been adapted into a movie or a TV show

CBR16 Bingo: Horses (the back cover has a picture of the horses that Ronja and Birk tame during their stay in the forest)

Ronja is the only daughter of the chief of a robber band. She's born during a particularly stormy night when a lightning strike creates a giant gorge in the stone fortress where she grows up. Beloved by her father and his robber band, Ronja is kept sheltered through the early years of her life and then is allowed to venture out into the woods surrounding the fortress. She gradually learns not to be afraid of anything and grows strong and independent, thriving in the woods. 

For much of her childhood, Ronja is a lonely but content child. When she meets Birk, the son of her father's arch-enemy, the chief of a rival robber band, they are initially hostile towards one another because of their fathers' animosity, but soon become close as siblings. When the rivalry between their fathers worsens, the children decide to remove themselves from the situation entirely. They move into a cave in the forest, using the tricks and skills they have acquired to fend for themselves, waiting for their parents to come to their senses and end the bloodshed between the two robber bands.

My older brother (9 years older than me) taught me to read when I started showing an interest in the alphabet. I was about three years old. I was a voracious reader even before I started school, and according to my late mother, this was the first proper chapter book I finished reading to myself. The film adaptation that was made of this book from 1984 is also the first film I ever saw in the cinema. My mother took me while I was still 4 years old (I remember clearly because the age limit was actually 5, and I was shocked that my mother lied at the ticket counter and said I had already turned five. I think it was my first realisation that grown-ups didn't always tell the truth). 

Both this book and the movie adaptation are beloved children's classics for Swedish and Norwegian kids who grew up in the 1980s and 90s. The book has also been adapted into a stage play, a musical, a Studio Ghibli animated series, and now most recently into a new Swedish series that debuted on Netflix earlier this year. I love this book and re-read it to see whether it was age-appropriate for my six-year-old. Since the story is rather slow, but there are also some serious themes explored, I have concluded that we should probably wait a year or two before I introduce him to it, but it's a wonderful story, and should absolutely still be recommended to middle-grade readers. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover art of the book and the inside illustrations in this book were done by Ilon Wikland, an Estonian woman who moved to Sweden as a teenager. She illustrated a lot of Astrid Lindgren's most popular books and having grown up with these illustrations, for me, the stories aren't complete without them. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 21: "Role Playing" by Cathy Yardley

Page count: 331 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR16 Sweet Books: Cozy

48-year-old Maggie's son has recently moved away to college and now she's stuck in the big house she got in the divorce some years earlier, in a town where she barely knows anyone. She's unapologetically grumpy and doesn't actually want to expand her social circle. She worries about her son in college, however, and keeps trying to challenge him to socialise and make friends. He turns the table on her and demands that she do the same. She has absolutely nothing in common with the women her own age, but reluctantly goes to a couple of parties to be able to send her son pictures as "proof."

50-year-old Aiden moved back to his home town to take care of his ailing father, and now that his father has passed, he is trying to care for his demanding mother, without much help from his brother (who also happened to marry Aiden's ex-fiancee after dumping Aiden rather spectacularly once she discovered some things about him that she didn't like). Aiden blows off steam by running a guild in an online roleplaying game, and when Maggie joins, they strike up a friendship. Due to a series of misunderstandings, Aiden thinks Maggie is a senior citizen (it doesn't help that she keeps saying she's old enough to be his mother). Maggie does think she's old enough to be Aiden's mother, since she believes him to be a twenty-something community college student. 

Because of this misunderstanding about their respective ages, even when their online chats take a more flirty direction, neither are seriously considering actually doing anything about it. When they eventually do meet, and realise that they're age-appropriate for one another, there is still complicated emotional baggage in both of their pasts that make taking a new chance at love and a relationship a very tricky thing. 

This book came highly recommended by two people whose opinions about books I always trust, narfna and Emmalita, because they rarely, if ever, steer me wrong. Both were very complimentary about this book, and they were not wrong. Both Maggie and Aiden are great characters, and now that I'm a lot closer to 50 than to 30, it's not the norm to find romance novel progagonists my age. It's nice to read about people who have actually lived a little before finding their HEAs.

I almost wholeheartedly loved this, but the whole complication surrounding Aiden's ex-fiancee, now sister-in-law just got a bit too melodramatic. The whole thing felt too over the top, and hence I am withholding half a start. That's not to say that I might not upgrade the book upon a re-read (that frequently happens). This is my first Cathy Yardley novel, but it clearly won't be my last (for one thing, I own several of her earlier books, and do need to keep chipping away on that TBR list). 

Judging a book by its cover: I'm sure Leni Kaufman might make bad romance covers, but I have yet to see one. This cover is so pretty, and she's captured the characters so well. Everything about it screams cozy. I also really like using the full moon as the O in the title. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 15: "The Write Escape" by Charish Reid

Page count: 291 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo: A book with a BIPOC author and main character

CBR16 Sweet Books: Cozy

In very short order, Antonia Harper has lost her job and discovered that her fiancée was cheating on her, very shortly before the wedding. The honeymoon was supposed to be in Ireland, and Antonia decides to travel there by herself. Her spiteful ex has cancelled their original reservations, but she rents a cottage to stay in instead. With nothing else to distract her, Antonia decides to make a stab at writing more of the romance novel she's been dreaming of completing (but never had time for, what with her busy job as an editor and trying to plan a wedding). She isn't exactly happy with men in general at present, but the handsome professor in the cottage next door is making her reconsider her wish to be alone.

Aidan Byrnes is a literature professor who is finding his job difficult at the moment. He's rented a cottage in the little town of Tully Cross to get some peace and quiet and to finally have the time and focus to complete an important academic paper. He first runs into Antonia in the tiny supermarket nearby and is both surprised and delighted to discover that she is staying in the cottage next to his. Still slightly weary of romantic entanglements after his girlfriend dumped him a year previous, Aiden nevertheless can't stop thinking about Antonia, who he discovers is not only gorgeous but clever, educated, and funny as well.

What starts out as a bit of a holiday fling begins to turn serious pretty quickly. Neither Antonia nor Aidan were expecting to meet anyone, let alone start falling for them in the sleepy village of Tully Cross. Yet Aiden has a job at an Irish university, and Antonia's life is back in America. Can their fledgling romance turn into something more permanent, with an entire ocean between them?

This is my first novel by Charish Reid and it was fun, but not exactly a perfect read. I really liked Antonia and Aiden as characters, both apart and together. Both are hard-working and devoted to their jobs (but obviously Antonia is unemployed for much of the book since she loses her job early on). Antonia is also very close to her family, especially her sister, which made it difficult when they clearly weren't enthusiastic about her upcoming wedding. I would love to read a sequel novel about her sister.

The majority of the book is set in Ireland, and while I'm sure Irish villages are very quaint and welcoming, it seems like a slightly exaggerated ideal of the place. No one is unpleasant, racist, or rude. I understand that those aren't exactly things that you would want in a fluffy escapist romance, but from my experience, not all small-town folk anywhere are open-minded and whole-heartedly welcoming to any strangers, certainly not those with darker skin colours. 

This was a quick breezy read, and I liked it a lot. There were a few things that annoyed me a bit, but nothing serious enough for me not to want to read more of her books. Firstly, Antonia is obviously using her vacation in Ireland to work on her romance novel. At one point, Aiden uses her computer and can't help himself from reading what she's written. Considering how unsure she is of her writing and how personal a book manuscript can be, this felt like he was reading her journal. When she eventually discovers what he's done, she seems to forgive him very quickly. SPOILER! Antonia also seems able to relocate her entire life to Ireland on very little notice, to be with a guy whom she's known for less than two weeks. Good to know that it's that easy to make a major life change when you finally meet the hot guy you decide is Mr. Right.

Judging a book by its cover: I really like the visible joy on the faces of both of the cover models here. This is exactly the sort of novel that would have a jewel-toned cover with cute cartoony characters on it now, and I'm not sure that trend is as great as publishers think it is. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Books 43-44: "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" and "A Prayer for the Crown-Shy" by Becky Chambers

Total page count: 320 pages

Rating, both stories: 4.5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: On the Road

On a moon (that seems quite like Earth in many respects) called Panga, people live peacefully together in harmonious small communities. There are remnants of a previous industrial age, and it's suggested that there was a near apocalypse way back when, but humanity improved and started thinking about what was better for their environment, possibly helped by the exodus of their robots. At some point, in the distant past, many generations ago, the robots that had been working in the factories and enabled humans to industrialise most everything, gained sentience and asked the humans for their freedom. This seems to have been managed without any major conflict - no Terminator-style rise of the machines on Panga. When offered an equal place in society as the humans themselves had, the robots instead chose to leave society entirely and go off into the untouched wilderness to observe it in all its glory.

Hence no one has seen any robots for a very, very long time, until one of our protagonists, Sibling Dex (they/them), a restless monk, encounters the other of our protagonists, the robot Mosscap, during his possibly inadvisable trek through the wilderness. Sibling Dex, initially a monk working in a monastic society in the city started yearning for the sound of crickets, something they certainly would never experience living and working where they were. So they retrained and became a tea monk, an individual who travels around to all the far-flung human settlements in a little wagon supplied with teas and tisanes and on their stops along the way offer up tea and a little oasis of calm to anyone who feels like joining them. Sibling Dex works diligently to make their various blends and brews and after some false starts, becomes a sympathetic and caring listener to those who wish to unburden themselves while enjoying a cup of tea in their presence. 

After some time of travelling to the various small communities, Sibling Dex is forced to acknowledge that not even becoming a tea monk has managed to soothe the unease inside them, and they still haven't been able to find any crickets to listen to. So they somewhat rashly decide to leave settled human society and venture into the wilderness in search of a rumoured ruined monastery, where there may still be crickets. Sibling Dex is rather taken aback at encountering Mosscap (full name Splendid Speckled Mosscap - the robots take their name from the first thing they see when they first wake up). Mosscap, on the other hand, is delighted to meet Sibling Dex. Being wild-built, a robot created by some of the descendants of the first robots to achieve sentience, Mosscap has proposed to venture into the human world to find out how humanity is now doing and discover what they need. Sibling Dex tries to explain that this is a very large task, which might even be impossible, considering how many different humans there are and how many dreams and wishes exist among them. 

After some back and forth, Mosscap decides to accompany Sibling Dex through the wilderness in search of crickets, while Sibling Dex agrees to be the robot's guide to humanity. On their continuing journey, they have many lovely and meaningful conversations and begin to become unlikely friends.

In A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, Sibling Dex and Mosscap's friendship and mutual understanding deepen, as Sibling Dex takes Mosscap around to villages and cities on Panga, so Mosscap can try to answer their question of what humans want. Among the places they visit is Sibling Dex's own home, and large and boisterous family. 

These lovely novellas, which came to be during the deeply depressing years of the Covid pandemic are relatively short (I wish I'd gotten to spend more time with Sibling Dex and Mosscap) and very gentle, philosophical reads. They are apparently classified as solarpunk - an optimistic vision of a more sustainable future, where there are close connections between nature and community. This certainly seems to fit the bill here. Everything seems carefully crafted, sustainable, and solar-powered, and people live with an awareness of and respect for nature, making sure not to make too serious a footprint while building their settlements. Considering the world we currently live in, it's a wonderful fantasy.

Chambers is a talented writer, whose characterisation and world-building in the previous novels I've read, are all excellent. These novellas are no different and like the people who sit by Sibling Dex's tea wagon for a spell, unburdening themselves about various troubles and receiving kind-hearted advice in return, these books felt like a balm for my soul, containing a lot of philosophy and musings on what makes us happy, what makes for a satisfying life and so forth, but also just cozy, low-peril plots that nevertheless entertained. Chambers has been nominated for a lot of awards for these stories and won the Hugo Award for Best Novella 2022 for A Psalm for the Wild-Built and the Locus Award for Best Novella 2022 for A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. 

I don't know if there are more novellas planned about Sibling Dex and Mosscap, since these seem to have come out in 2021 and 2022, and there has been nothing since. Checking her blog, it seems as if she's on hiatus from writing for an undisclosed period of time because of bereavement, so it may be a while before we see anything at all from her, not just about Monk and Robot. 

Judging the books by their covers: I don't really have much to say, except that these covers are so very lovely and give tiny hints of what the books contain. I especially like the windy roads on the cover of A Psalm for the Wild-Built and the lovely combination of colours on A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. There's something about the images that just feels soothing. They make me feel calmer and happier just looking at them. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR15 Book 40: "Arsenic and Adobo" by Mia P. Manansala

Page count: 336 pages

Rating: 3 stars

CBR15 Bingo: Edibles (this book features both a lot of food and quite a few drugs)

Lila Macapagal used to live in Chicago and dreamed of opening her own restaurant, but both her business and relationship failed miserably. She's back in her hometown, helping to run her tita (aunt) Rosie run the family restaurant, where they serve Philipino food. Unfortunately, Lila's ex-boyfriend is a food critic and seems determined to come back, again and again, to sample the food and write scathing things about the food and service. Only this time, he collapses at the table and has to be rushed to hospital, where he dies sometime later. Shortly after, the police are at the restaurant and while searching the premises, they also find a bag in Lila's locker containing a large amount of drugs. Now she's not only the main suspect in the murder of her ex-boyfriend but the police think she's a drug kingpin. 

Lila is determined to clear her name and with the help of her barista BFF, said bestie's lawyer brother, and the big network of aunties who seem to know everything about everyone in town, she begins to investigate. Her tita's restaurant will stay closed until her name is cleared, not to mention that Lila risks a long time in prison if she can't find the actual murderer.

The topic for this June's Cannon Book Club was Fun in the Summertime. Three romances and one cozy mystery were selected. This was the cozy mystery. I got it in an e-book sale in July 2022, so it seemed like a good choice to read since I'd already read two of the romances suggested earlier this year. Once upon a time, I used to read a lot of mysteries, cozy and otherwise, but now it seems like I only have the patience for historical mysteries with romantic subplots, featuring Victorian ladies. Sadly, this book didn't really tempt me into continuing the series (book 4 is out in October), as I found the book rather underwhelming, and comments from other members of the book club (who have read some of the sequels) suggest that the writing doesn't really improve. So this is probably my one and only Manansala book.

One of the problems with the book is that Lila, the protagonist, is rather insufferable, and she certainly seems terrible at investigating. She keeps ignoring clues and connections she discovers while investigating, and seems to finally find the culprit more through luck than anything else (I had figured out the guilty party at least three hints earlier, not that Lila seemed to notice any of them). She's completely oblivious to the wants and wishes of her loyal best friend (who wants her to stay in town and open an establishment together), and she's judgmental about her hometown (despite the fact that she didn't really hack it in Chicago either). She seems to love her aunt and her large extended family of "aunties" and cousins and kind of resent them. It's completely baffling to me that she attracts the romantic interest of not one, but two handsome and talented professional men. It doesn't help that I'm instantly wary of love triangles in mysteries, having stuck longer than I should have with Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series (just become a thruple already, or better yet, have Joe and Ranger settle down together and dump Stephanie entirely). 

The book's redeeming feature is its focus on Philipino food and culture, which I really didn't know much about. There's a very helpful glossary (with a pronunciation guide) at the front of the book. The book certainly made me curious about Philipino food (there's a lot of cooking) and the author has helpfully included recipes at the back of the book (not sure I can get ube in Norway, though). 

Judging a book by its cover: While the book was rather underwhelming, the cover is very cute. I like the bright colours and the presence of the tiny sausage dog (not that anyone working in food service would let a dog into the kitchen). 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR14 Book 49: "Legends & Lattes" by Travis Baldree

Page count: 312 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Viv the orc barbarian has had enough of the adventuring life and leaves her band of fellow warriors after one last battle with a particularly challenging monster. Instead of fighting, she dreams of taking all her savings and putting them towards a business of her own. In the city of Thune, she plans to open a cozy little shop, selling something called coffee. Turning a worn-down livery stable into a pleasant café isn't exactly something Viv's warrior training prepared her for, but she manages to make some useful friends and allies early on and despite some colourful threats from the local enforcers, she slowly, but surely builds her new life. 

Obviously, making people excited about an unknown drink made from hot bean water isn't going to be easy, but Viv hires Tandri, an enigmatic succubus to help with serving, and the woman turns out to have a flair for marketing that can definitely aid in launching a tempting new business. After a long life of killing monsters and smashing goons, Viv has a lot of interesting friends but has also amassed some enemies. A person from her adventuring past is convinced she has something very valuable hidden in her shop and keeps slinking around to cause trouble.

This was the December pick in my fantasy/sci-fi book club and it's an excellent pick for the coldest and darkest time of the year. In between stressing about end-of-term grading, figuring out and purchasing Christmas presents, worrying about my Mum (we had to put her in a care home earlier this year, and she's growing more senile by the week), and other boring life things, this book offered me an escape and a cozy respite. The tagline proclaims that this is "High fantasy with low stakes" and that is thankfully not a lie. I think this book might be the opposite of grimdark and possibly something more fantasy authors should be doing nowadays. 

At a quick glance, I can see that at least seven of my fellow Cannonballers have already read and reviewed this book, and if they couldn't convince you to pick up this book, I'm unlikely to change your mind. My only (minor) complaint about this book was that there was a lot of focus on renovation and DIY, and I would have liked a bit more about Viv developing new friendships and relationships with the supporting characters. There was such a cool cast of secondary characters, I would have liked to see all of them fleshed out a bit more.

Judging a book by its cover: While I own the e-book of this, I ended up buying a physical copy, which features the UK cover. While I really like the portrait depictions of Viv and Tandri, this cover, which evokes the shop's blackboard and its delicious treats, and that lovely emotional association makes me very fond of it. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR14 Book 34: "Mooncakes" by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu

Page count: 256 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Cozy (this is a super-sweet YA comic. While there are some dark themes, the main vibe here is absolutely cozy.) 

Nova Huang (she/her) is an orphaned young witch, although she sees the ghosts of her parents during each major holiday, and sometimes just when they feel she might need advice or a good talking to. She lives with her two grandmothers, who sell books of both the mundane and magical varieties. 

Tam (they/them)  on the other hand, seems to have been on their own for a long time. They had to run away from home once things got too bad there, and now they're back in the town they were happy as a child, but there is sinister magic threatening the place, and Tam knows they need to use their werewolf magic somehow in order to banish it. 

Nova's grandmothers are very powerful witches and used to dealing with supernatural threats, but even they find the demon presence in the woods impossible to vanquish. The best they can do is try to empower Nova and Tam to manage the task instead. 

This book has been on my shelf for far too long (at some point, it also appears to have sustained some pretty bad water damage to the latter half of the book. Neither my husband nor I can remember it happening, and it kind of sucks, because it meant the last few pages were stuck together and difficult to separate). It's a super sweet book aimed at young adults, which possibly hits every square on the diversity bingo card. Nova is a person of colour, cis-gendered, bisexual, and uses hearing aids in both of her ears to hear properly (her grandmothers have had to adapt her magic so that the technology and magic don't interfere with each other). Nova is raised by a lesbian couple, who seem perfectly accepted and loved in their little society. Tam is a non-binary lesbian werewolf. Both of the young protagonists have coming-of-age challenges to deal with on top of their growing feelings for one another. 

The story is relatively fast-paced and while there is danger lurking, it never feels too perilous. The art is gorgeous and the romance between the main characters is very sweet. Nova has a large, diverse and very supportive family (several members are of the supernatural persuasion). I loved that although her parents are dead, they are still an active part of her life as ghosts, she just doesn't see them all the time. 

My original intention was to use this for the "dough" square of the bingo card, because of the title. Sadly baking and baked goods play such a small part in the story that I decided it probably fit better for "cozy". I don't think I've ever spent as much time changing and rearranging my original plan for the book bingo as I have this year. It's a good thing I have such a big book collection, usually, there is more than one book that works for each of the squares.

Judging a book by its cover: Look at the cuteness of this cover! You can see why I thought baking was going to play a bigger part in the story. The cover gives you an idea of Wendy Xu's art style, which really enhanced the story for me. 

 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.