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I don't seem to have done one of these since the middle of July. So:
The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Older, is a very good sf/mystery/romance novel. It's set on Jupiter after humans have made Earth uninhabitable. They're living on small platforms attached to rails at a distance from the planet that humans can handle, while they work on figuring out how to restore a livable ecology on Earth. They call their refuge/temporary home Giant, but the moons have their current names. The romance part is, the narrator's ex-lover asks her to work together on a mystery, and they have to figure out whether it's possible for t-hem to be lovers, or even good friends, again. The main plot arc is the mystery, plus gradually-revealed and well-done world-building.
The Wizard's Butler, by Nathan Lowell, is a pleasant low-stakes mystery; the title character has no experience as a butler and hadn't even thought about that as a possible job; he's hired on the basis of his experience as an army medic, after being fired from a job as a paramedic.
he Public Library, a Photographic Essay, by Robert Dawson, The Dawson book has photos of lots of different libraries, with text describing them, and some essays by other people. The photo captions were too small for me to read comfortably, but I enjoyed looking at the pictures and reading the larger-print written material. I think I found this while looking for "a book about libraries" for the Boston Public Library summer reading bingo card.
The Shoemaker's Wife and Old as the Hills, are both set in the author's Albion historical fantasy world. The Shoemaker's Wife is a romance set shortly after World War I, and the male protagonist is a just-demobilized soldier. He and his wife are both trying to find their way in peacetime, and with each other, after meetiong and marrying quickly during the war. Old as the Hills is set in 1939-40, and the war is important to the plot. Much of this book is about an attempt to use a magical transport network to rescue European Jews, while other people are working to stop the Germans from invading via the same portals.
The Appeal is an odd epistolary mystery story that didn't work for me, with rounds of "here are some more hints" from a lawyer to two trainees.
The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Older, is a very good sf/mystery/romance novel. It's set on Jupiter after humans have made Earth uninhabitable. They're living on small platforms attached to rails at a distance from the planet that humans can handle, while they work on figuring out how to restore a livable ecology on Earth. They call their refuge/temporary home Giant, but the moons have their current names. The romance part is, the narrator's ex-lover asks her to work together on a mystery, and they have to figure out whether it's possible for t-hem to be lovers, or even good friends, again. The main plot arc is the mystery, plus gradually-revealed and well-done world-building.
The Wizard's Butler, by Nathan Lowell, is a pleasant low-stakes mystery; the title character has no experience as a butler and hadn't even thought about that as a possible job; he's hired on the basis of his experience as an army medic, after being fired from a job as a paramedic.
he Public Library, a Photographic Essay, by Robert Dawson, The Dawson book has photos of lots of different libraries, with text describing them, and some essays by other people. The photo captions were too small for me to read comfortably, but I enjoyed looking at the pictures and reading the larger-print written material. I think I found this while looking for "a book about libraries" for the Boston Public Library summer reading bingo card.
The Shoemaker's Wife and Old as the Hills, are both set in the author's Albion historical fantasy world. The Shoemaker's Wife is a romance set shortly after World War I, and the male protagonist is a just-demobilized soldier. He and his wife are both trying to find their way in peacetime, and with each other, after meetiong and marrying quickly during the war. Old as the Hills is set in 1939-40, and the war is important to the plot. Much of this book is about an attempt to use a magical transport network to rescue European Jews, while other people are working to stop the Germans from invading via the same portals.
The Appeal is an odd epistolary mystery story that didn't work for me, with rounds of "here are some more hints" from a lawyer to two trainees.