I’ve been retired for just a little over 2 months and have spent that time catching up on my lengthy Netgalley pre-pub reading. For the first time in years, my Netgalley queue is empty!
What’s next? Tackling my Goodreads “Want To Read” list, where the earliest entry is from 2012. I’m starting at the beginning and plan to work my way through all of them.
There are 700 books in that list, although I anticipate that some of them have been read but the status not changed in my Goodreads account. It will be fun to look back on what captured my attention so many years ago.
I’m starting with the beauty shown above: Moloka’i by Alan Brennert. All the reviews use words like “transcendant” and “heartbreaking” so I’m expecting an emotional reading experience.
Another change for me – as I adjust to life as a library patron rather than employee, I am becoming reacquainted with the holds system. I’m hoping to read most or all of the GR books in print format from area libraries. We’ll see how that goes!
April 14 – May 9 Virtual Book Tour A Nicholas Bishop Mystery
Description
1942. War rages in Europe. Pearl Harbor still smolders. And alcoholic private eye Nicholas Bishop wakes up on a hotel room floor with two slugs missing from his .38 revolver. The cops think he’s murdered lounge singer Pearl DuGaye, mobsters think he saw something he shouldn’t have, and Bishop remembers nothing…
Together with his indomitable assistant Gia Alessi, who he may or may not have fired, a WWI vet who often flashes back to 1918, and a one-eyed female dog named Jake, Bishop tries to piece together the events that took place during his disastrous five-day bender. Along the way, he stumbles across a dirty politician, a socialite and her unfaithful husband, and a cabal of American Nazis who are undoubtedly up to no good.
Written in the spirit of classic noir, Eoannou adds his own unique voice and flair to the genre in this, the first action-packed outing of the Nicholas Bishop Mysteries.
My Thoughts
Fans of traditional noir crime fiction will thoroughly enjoy this first in a series featuring PI Nick Bishop. Eoannou delivers a clever mystery filled with witty and gritty dialog, colorful characters, and an on-the-money plot that will have you guessing right up to the end.
I especially enjoyed the Buffalo setting, although I am not a Buffalo native. I live about 60 miles to the east of B’lo but spend enough time there to recognize many of the descriptive details Eoannou includes in the narrative.
There seems to be a resurgence of crime fiction set in between the wars or just after WWII. Much of what I’ve read has had a bit of a madcap theme with very quirky characters, both human and animal. Eoannou, however, fully embraces the Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross McDonald school of detective fiction and I LIKE IT!
Grab this one from your library or buy a copy and settle in for some entertaining reading.
Book Details
Genre: Historical Noir Published by: Santa Fe Writers Project Publication Date: May 1, 2025 Number of Pages: 260 ISBN: 9781951631475 (ISBN10: 1951631471) Series: A Nicholas Bishop Mystery, Book 1
Stephen G. Eoannou is the author of the award-winning short story collection Muscle Cars and the novels Rook, Yesteryear, and After Pearl. He holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and an MA from Miami University. He has been awarded an Honor Certificate from The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Best Short Screenplay Award at the 36th Denver Film Festival. His latest novel, Yesteryear, was awarded the 2021 International Eyelands Award for Best Historical Novel, The Firebird Book Award for Biographical Fiction, and Shelf Unbound’s Notable Indy Books of 2023. He lives and writes in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, the setting and inspiration for much of his work.
A missing girl. A town full of secrets. A past that won’t stay buried.
Some families keep dark secrets. Some families *are* dark secrets.
When a young girl vanishes in rural Northern Ireland, Piety, a newly appointed Queen’s agent, must return to the same orphanage she grew up in to investigate.
Lissy isn’t just any child. She has magic in her blood, a power she doesn’t understand and can’t control. It’s been driving her father to madness. It may even have killed her mother.
As Piety digs deeper, she finds more than a missing girl. A dangerous artefact, steeped in ancient power, was left in Lissy’s bedroom. A warning, a weapon, or perhaps something worse. And Lissy isn’t the first girl to disappear.
The trail leads to a quiet family farm where generations of women protect a dark secret. They all share the same magical gift, and the same tragic history; taken in by their new mother, after their real parents mysteriously died. And now that mother has her eyes set on Lissy.
To uncover the final, terrifying truth hidden in Templepatrick, Piety must untangle decades of disappearances—and confront a past that wants to stay buried.
A chilling and atmospheric urban fantasy set in 1960s Northern Ireland, Piety’s Fury is a tale of magic, mystery, and the cost of uncovering the truth.
My Thoughts
What a wild story! I haven’t read such an un-put-downable adventure in ages, and am now mourning the end because I WANT MORE!
The second in the Agents by Royal Appointment series, Ragnarsson has written one of the best fantasy/adventure stories of the year. The characters leap off the pages with smart-ass dialog and heart-stopping action centered on Lissy, a young girl who is just learning about her gift of magic. The concept here is one I’ve not read often – a family of magical beings keeping their line going by “adopting” children gifted with magic. I suppose it’s a bit similar to Mother Malkin’s “family” in Joseph Delaney’s Last Apprentice series, but this story is just so well-developed it seems wholly original.
The action never stops, and Piety and Fitz are two of the most engaging lead characters out there. As I read, I kept imagining this as a movie or TV series. It would be fantastic!
Fans of witty, fast-paced, action-packed fantasy will slurp this one up.
Highly recommended.
Publication Date: April 20, 2025 Thanks to Book Sirens for the review copy
I’ve never read any of Peter Lovesey’s books, but I was nonetheless saddened to read of his death on April 10. Shelf Awareness ran a short piece on his career and I learned a whole lot of things about this prolific writer whose books I clearly remember shelving way back when I was a library page.
Did you know that Lovesey is credited as the first to successfully set a detective series in the past? His series featuring the Victorian detective Sergeant Cribb explored gritty crime in settings such as music halls and underground boxing rings. Cribb’s adventures were made into a popular television series in the late 1970s, which I now must try and track down (hoping I might find an old DVD in a library somewhere!)
Lovesey went on to write a popular contemporary series featuring hard-as-nails detective Peter Diamond. This is the series I am now reading! There are dozens of Diamond stories out there, and I am determined to read each one.
Lovesey concluded the Diamond series with his last publication, Against the Grain, in 2024.
Lovesey concludes his long-running series featuring Bath detective Peter Damond with a bang, delivering an ingenious fair-play whodunit set in the small English village of Baskerville as the annual harvest festival approaches . . . Lovesey derives genuine emotion from Diamond’s potential retirement, and his golden age-style plotting is as tight as ever. This sends the series out on a high note. Publishers Weekly Starred Review
Lovesey was also apparently a stand-up human being, acknowledged by friends and colleagues as someone who led a really good life. He won multiple awards for his work, and I suspect inspired many crime fiction writers of the last few decades.
Now that I’m retired from work as a library director, I am making much more time to read and catching up with a lot of authors I’ve neglected over the years. Lovesey is one of them.
If you want to know more about Peter Lovesey, read the Shelf Awareness article and check out his website.
When Delaney Nichols wins a special Hidden Door Festival invitation to artist Ryory Bennigan’s studio, she isn’t sure quite what to expect. What she finds is an elusive fellow obsessed with the Picts—complete with his own versions of their blue tattoos and vibrant red hair—recreating the stones they left behind. She also meets a visiting paleontologist, Dr. Adam Pace, from the University of Kansas attempting to sell an artifact that might just explain what the Picts’ language really sounded like.
Or at least that’s what he claimed the artifact was for. Before the deal can close and Ryory can get a closer look at it, Dr. Pace is found dead.
With the police dragging their feet in the investigation, Delaney takes it upon herself to dig into Dr. Pace’s past. Her research goes murky as she quickly discovers Pace’s shady background—selling fake dinosaur bones and running into some 3D-printing trouble back in Kansas. Could his past have come back to bite him in Edinburgh? And what does his questionable background mean for the mysterious Pictish artifact he was trying to sell to Ryory? Delaney will have to dust off her magnifying glass to uncover the truth behind this case… or risk becoming a pile of bones herself.
My Thoughts
Paige Shelton is one of my go-to cozy mystery authors, and her Scottish Bookshop series is a favorite. This latest entry in that series is another winner.
One of the things I love about this series is that Shelton makes every story a mini-lesson in history. For instance, past books have included plots involving Mary, Queen of Scots and famous swords. Here, we learn about the Picts, perhaps the most mysterious of the Celtic peoples. It’s not a deep dive into history, but enough to make me want to know more. Add that to inventive plots and colorful characters and you have a very successful story.
While this can be read out of order, if you’re new to the series I recommend you start at the beginning and savor each one.
Publication Date: April 1, 2025 Published By: St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy
In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.
Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology, revealing the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early development of urban planning, Newitz also introduces us to the often anonymous workers–slaves, women, immigrants, and manual laborers–who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia.
Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate.
My Thoughts
This is a bit of a departure in my typical reading, but I picked this up after an enthusiastic recommendation from Stephanie Cole Adams, someone whose opinion I greatly respect. I found an accessible, thought-provoking, and sometimes irritating look at ancient urban development and why it failed at four specific sites.
The format of the book – essentially four long sections each devoted to one city – makes this a comfortable read and easy to start and stop. However, I often found it hard to stop reading.
Netwitz explores each city in person and through scientific experts, which lends a familiarity to the narrative. For the non-scientific reader, it feels like an enthusiastic friend touring you through a new city sharing interesting bits of information. I understand that for the scientific reader this is an irritating approach, but for me it was just right.
A number of reviews mention the author’s interjection of their personal belief system and exposition of conjecture as fact as a major issue here. I suppose that’s true, but that’s how connections are made for many readers. I found their personal reactions and use of imagination entertaining and thought-provoking, and something that I believe is often missing in the cold, hard facts of scientific research. I *want* to imagine the daily life of the inhabitants of these cities, and Newitz does a good job of humanizing the people who lived, farmed, labored, and died in each location.
I found the section on Pompeii especially interesting as I had the most knowledge about this city prior to reading the book, but I learned something new about each city. Pompeii, though, seemed like the Las Vegas of Ancient Rome, something I didn’t really understand before reading this book.
I’d recommend this for the casual non-fiction reader with an interest in urban development and ancient history.
Publication Date: February 2021 Published By: W.W. Norton & Company Thanks to the Monroe County Library System for the book
Knives Out meets The Hazel Wood in this twisty contemporary fantasy about an amusement park shrouded in dark secrets—and the family desperate to inherit it at any cost.
Welcome to Whisperwood, a sprawling theme park nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, where thrilling rides and picture-perfect scenery bring cult-classic fairy tales to life. Or at least they did until eighteen months ago, when the family matriarch, Virginia Strauss, suddenly shut Whisperwood’s gates and the beloved park was left to wither away along with the family’s dwindling fortune.
For seventeen-year-old Frankie Strauss, Whisperwood’s closure has been a blessing in disguise. After seeing three generations of wealth’s corrupting influence, she is more than ready to shed the Strauss-family’s gilded handcuffs.
But when Virginia goes missing, Frankie realizes that her family might be guilty of something much worse than mere dysfunction. With the help of the mysterious and handsome groundskeeper Jem, Frankie sifts through a web of near truths and outright lies, uncovering a reality where nothing is as it seems and fairy tales aren’t just real—they’re deadly.
My Thoughts
With nods to many, many sources – folkloric, modern film, YA horror – The Whisperwood Legacy turns them all inside out in this fabulous, creepy, dark fairytale. Just when I think I won’t find another author or story to surpass books like The Hazelwood and The Clackity, along comes something new that just blows my mind.
Emerging readers of dark fiction will adore this twisted, anxiety-ridden tale as our protagonists attempt to control a story centuries in the making. Schulte spins a tale that envelops you with sticky little tendrils that just won’t let go until the last little bit of your nerve has been shredded.
This one will be at the top of my October spooky reads list this year.
Highly recommended.
“Atmospheric and delightfully eerie with monstrous fairy tales and toothy secrets.”—CG Drews, New York Times bestselling author of Don’t Let the Forest In
Publication Date: May 27, 2025 Published By: Little Brown Books for Young Readers Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy
From the internationally award-winning creator of Broadchurch comes a brilliant new detective story following one man’s death and the secrets that unravel in a coastal English village
Nothing keeps a village together like secrets.
The villagers of Fleetcombe like to think of it as one of the most picturesque spots on England’s coast.
But now, it’s a disturbingly macabre crime scene.
A man is found dead, tied to a chair in the middle of the road, a stag’s antlers on his head. The gruesome scene stuns the town, especially when the victim is identified: Jim Tiernan, who ran the White Hart pub. Tierney’s pub is at the center of village life and he knew everyone’s secrets.
Detective Nicola Bridge grew up in Fleetcombe and has now returned, for the good of her family, from a life away in Liverpool. DC Harry Ward is ten years younger and, despite his newcomer status, determined to earn Nicola’s trust. Because they don’t have long to crack the storybook façade and find out just what the people of Fleetcombe have to hide.
And now, in the place she thought she knew so well, Detective Nicola Bridge is asking questions. Is she ready for what she’s about to find?
My Thoughts
After the phenomenal Broadchurch, this author had some high expectations to meet with new work. Those expectations were exceeded for this reader!
You’re gripped from the first chapter, as an utterly gruesome and very weird murder unfolds in an idyllic English village. The detective in charge of the investigation is flawed but brilliant, her protegee by turns charming and reluctant, and the village full of quirky folks, including a tough but vulnerable child who is key to the whole mystery. I was reminded of Martha Grimes’ Emily Louise Perk, one of my all-time favorite child characters.
The action moves at a fast pace, with chapters and sections just the right length to keep the reader engaged. Chibnall has mastered the craft of suspense, building tension with every sentence, leading up to the startling conclusion.
Fans of Anne Cleeves and Val McDermid will thoroughly enjoy this one.
“Fans of Broadchurch are going to LOVE Death at the White Hart! With its compelling pair of detectives and tense, creepy atmosphere, once you start reading, I defy you to stop.” —Shari Lapena
Publication Date: June 10, 2025 Published By: Penguin Group VIKING PENGUIN, Pamela Dorman Books Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy
It's All About the Book 