Recommended Reads, February 2016

I missed last week's recipe and happiness posts because my daughter and I have been fighting the Lingering Cold of Doom 2016, and I spent from Tuesday night through midday Sunday doing as little as possible. This illness, however, led to me getting more reading done than I expected in February, a total of 15 books.

Here are my favorites from those books, in the order I read them. As far as I know, none were actually February releases--I'm rarely quite that up-to-date in my reading--but if your curiosity is piqued, they're all available as ebooks and/or at your local library.

Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber

A memoir of faith by an unconventional Lutheran pastor (her congregation is the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver) that was the perfect read for me at the beginning of Lent. It follows the rhythm of the liturgical church year--which is a big part of what drew me from my very non-liturgical Baptist roots all the way to the Episcopal Church, that whole sense of following an ancient rhythm and set of traditions to mark the patterns of the year--and also features the life-affirming grace and humor that have been a source of joy to me as a newbie Episcopalian. (Episcopalians and Lutherans have wildly different Protestant origin stories, but at least in America have grown quite a bit alike, so there's a certain similarity in style and approach, and our congregations often work together.)


The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher

I'd never read anything by Butcher before, though I knew him for a popular and prolific author. So I didn't quite know what to expect from this book.

What I found was purely delightful. Steampunk fantasy with airships engaging in duels a la Hornblower or Aubrey/Maturin in the clouds! Swashbuckling! Talking cats! (The talking cats were my favorite part of all.)

This book is first in a new series which I expect to follow all the way through, and I plan to check out Butcher's backlist as well. There are few things more delightful as a reader than discovering a new-to-you author whose "also by..." list takes up an entire page.


In Her Wildest Dreams by Farrah Rochon

A contemporary romance novella that packed a lot of romance and character develop into a story you can read in an afternoon. It features one of my all-time favorite tropes--friends to lovers--in a pair of New Orleans entrepreneurs (he's a computer programmer turned chocolatier, and she's a high-end event planner) who support and advise each other as they struggle to balance their longing for independence and self-sufficiency with their needs for community, to care for and accept care from friends and family.

I love that this is a city story, and one where love goes hand in hand with work, ambition, and finding a sense of vocation and fulfillment in their careers for both the hero and heroine.


Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day's Black Heroes, at Home and at War by Linda Hervieux

This account of black American soldiers during WWII, focusing on the experience of a barrage balloon battalion who landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day, was fascinating, and it left me gibbering with rage at the culture I was born into--that of the rural white South--for the way those soldiers, American citizens fighting to defend our country and to liberate Europe from tyranny and genocide, were treated. Yes, much has changed (though much still needs to change). But the fact that German POWs were regularly given privileges, kindness, and leisure opportunities that black AMERICAN SOLDIERS were denied? It's sickening. Not surprising, sadly, but sickening. (Not that I'm saying the POWs should've been treated badly, please understand.) And it also made me realize that we're almost as far removed from WWII now as WWII was removed from the Civil War. It seems weird that we're so many decades past WWII that it's starting to feel both distant from our world and close enough to the Civil War that you can clearly see the through-lines connecting them in American race relations and military history.

Listen to the Moon by Rose Lerner

While In Her Wildest Dreams was a delicious example of one of my favorite tropes, Listen to the Moon took a trope I usually struggle with--a large age gap between the hero and heroine--and made it work for me. (He's 40 and she's 22.) It helped that they met as adults, and she was never in any sense his ward or otherwise a daughter figure to him, so while there was a gap in their maturity and life experience, they still felt like equals in their relationship.

It's also an unusual historical romance in that the hero and heroine are both servants and stay that way throughout the story. In addition to being a sexy love story is something of a meditation on work, community, and finding your true vocation--so in that way it has a lot in common with my other romance recommendation. More romances like these, please!

What's been making me happy the past two weeks

We went down to Oklahoma the week of New Year's, and last weekend I was a sleep-deprived mess after our long flight back. So I completely forgot to post. But I've still been happy about things!

1) Football. I was sad that Auburn lost their bowl game, of course, but happy with how the two playoff games New Year's night turned out. All I asked of the universe once the four playoff teams were announced was that Florida State not win it all and Alabama not be the one to dethrone them. Well...to quote Sokka from Avatar: The Last Airbender...thank you, The Universe!

To continue my football happiness, last night Mr. Fraser and I were here:

Compared to Seahawks fans cheering a playoff victory, every other loud sporting event or concert I've ever attended is a sedate tea party or an afternoon in the library. Today I think my hearing is mostly back to normal.

Seriously, if you're a sports fan and you ever have a chance to attend a major event like this, grab it.

2. This Tetris lamp set. I got it for Christmas, and it's brought back some of my Tetris addiction from decades ago.

3. Jeannie Lin's Gunpowder Alchemy is the most fun book I've read so far this year. Steampunk 19th century China!

4. The midseason premiere of Sleepy Hollow pleased me greatly, and I'm holding out cautious hopes that my new favorite show will get its Season 1 mojo back.

5. While I was in Oklahoma, I got to eat good barbecue and chicken-fried steak with gravy. Thank you, in-laws!

Closing the book on 2014 reading and starting my 2015 reading

I spent last week visiting Mr. Fraser's family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between travel time and the odd quiet moment, I was able to finish 6 books--3 in 2014 and 3 in the new year:

The last of the 2014 reading:

140) Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell


A Hanukkah romance set at a Jewish summer camp trying to make a go of a winter break camp to build enthusiasm between terms. The hero and heroine have known each other since childhood, but almost exclusively as campers and then counselors. They're now in their twenties, just stepping into their careers and feeling out a newfound attraction and what it means in their outside-of-camp worlds. Definitely the first book I've read where the hero is a mortician, and by the end of the book I found his career awesome rather than off-putting.

141) Yours Forever by Farrah Rochon

A fun, quick romance about an aspiring politician who wants to keep family scandals going back generations buried and a history professor who needs his family records to keep her faculty position.

142) Ancestral Journeys by Jean Manco

The simple summary: People have constantly been migrating, as DNA increasingly reveals. A little on the dry side, but worth a read if the topic is of interest to you.

And the first of 2015:

1. Yes Please by Amy Poehler


A generally entertaining and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny memoir (though it gets a bit rambly at times). The chapters on focusing on creativity above career had a lot of resonance for me.

2. The Resistance Man by Martin Walker

The latest in Walker's endearing, food-porny mystery series. I pretty much guessed the murderer--at least, I suspected him before the sleuth did, which left me feeling clever.

3. Gunpowder Alchemy by Jeannie Lin

A really excellent steampunk alternative history set in 1840's China. Plenty of adventure and a nice thread of romance.

It's already feeling a bit late to do a "best reads of 2014" list, but I might do one anyway sometime in the next week for the sake of reviewing the year and in case anyone is looking for some recommendations and, like me, doesn't have any particular compulsion to read new books the instant they appear. (Unless they're sequels to books that ended on cliffhangers, in which case GIVE GIVE GIVE NOW NOW NOW.)

For 2015, my reading goals are the same as always--read a lot, and read a good variety of genres and topics.

2014 Reading, Books 118-120

118) The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives by Sasha Abramsky

The second book I've read this month about growing poverty and income inequality in America, over the course of my entire 40-something year lifetime and especially in the wake of the Great Recession, and it draws much the same conclusions as Bob Herbert's Losing Our Way. Basically, it's not that we lack the resources as a nation to combat poverty, decaying infrastructure, persistent unemployment and the like--we lack the political will, empathy, compassion, and general sense that we're all in it together as a nation. And I wish I felt optimism that we could regain all those fine qualities, but I don't.

119) The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer

A fun look at what everyday life was like in Elizabethan England, more broad than deep in its scope.

120) Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

An engaging, unusual fantasy novel that I recommend highly, with the caveat that this is a book that engrossed my head rather than my heart. I found myself thinking, "This is fantasy, but it feels like science fiction." When I asked myself what I meant by that (yeah, I know that sounds weird), I realized that I think of science fiction as technologically driven, while fantasy is more about sociology and/or spirituality. Which also explains why I think of the Vorkosigan Saga as being science fiction that reads like fantasy--sure, it's 1000 years into the future and humanity has colonized a bunch of planets linked by a "wormhole nexus," but the books are about people, their cultures, and where they find meaning. Whereas this book is gods and magic--as a technology. It's very well-done with intricate world-building and plotting. As such I expect to read more, but since I was reading with the head and not the heart, I doubt I'll ever turn into the kind of one-woman street team for these books that I am for the Vorkosigan series.

2013 TBR Challenge - Scoundrel

I read Warrior, the first book in this series, ages and ages ago, and bought the whole series as a "boxed" set when it was on sale for Kindle, again quite awhile back. And I've been hoarding it ever since, as I often do with books I know I'll enjoy, but where the author didn't leave me with a strong enough cliffhanger that I have to read the newest book the nanosecond it comes out. (I'm looking at you, Diana Gabaldon, for leaving poor Jem Mackenzie literally in the dark! And you too, George RR Martin, not to name any names lest I spoil TV viewers, but that last major character maybe-death!) Having a few hoarded books gives me a sense of security that I'll never be trapped on a long flight or, worse, holed up in an airport under a weather delay and lack for something entertaining to read.

Anyway, Archer's Blades of the Rose series is fantasy romance with steampunk elements, set in an alternate late 19th century where magic exists and the Blades of the Rose fight to ensure that each nation gets to keep their own magical legacy against the Heirs of Albion, who want to control all the world's magic so the sun will really REALLY never set on the British Empire. They're sort of Indiana Jones with lots of sexytimes--rollicking swashbucklers where good is good, evil is evil, and the characters hurtle from one death-defying adventure to the next.

I picked up Scoundrel now because the October theme for the 2013 Romance TBR Challenge is Paranormal Romance. I didn't like it quite so much as Warrior because of the different hero archetypes involved--Warrior's hero is a rough-around-the-edges soldier who falls for a highborn woman, which I love. (Mmm, Sharpe!) Bennett Day in Scoundrel is more your typical romance novel womanizing rogue, which is much less a fantasy of mine. That said, I loved the heroine, and the swashbuckling was dandy. And speaking of dandies, I'm looking forward to Catullus Graves' story in Stranger. He's the inventor of all the handy gadgets the Blades team uses, and he's a black Briton, which draws my interest since two of my own most recent manuscripts have featured black British characters.

What I've been reading lately

So, I've had a bit of a reading drought the past couple weeks, partly because I went back and read Captain Vorpatril's Alliance again slowly, to savor it properly after bolting through it the first time around.  I do that a lot with Bujold's books--they just get richer on re-reading.

That said, I have a few novellas and graphic novels to add to my 2012 reading count:

59) Slow Summer Kisses, by Shannon Stacey. A contemporary romance novella with a heroine decompressing from a downsizing at her grandparents' summer cabin and a hero who downsized himself a long time ago. I'm not usually a huge fan of small town contemporary romances, but this story really worked for me, and also did a great job convincing me of the characters' compatibility and hopes for happiness despite the relatively short length--I finished it in three half-hour sessions over lunch last week.


60) Serenity: Better Days, by Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, and Will Conrad. This graphic novel read just like an episode of Firefly--a fun one, but not one of my all-time favorites from that 'verse.

61) Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale, by Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, and Chris Samnee. Shepherd Book's backstory. I liked this one better than the previous one, but it still felt a bit...incomplete, I guess. I would've liked a bit more of Book's post-conversion life, and some of his childhood hardships seemed a little obvious, but I still enjoyed it.

62) Kilts & Kraken, by Cindy Spencer Pape. Another Carina novella, this one a mid-19th century steampunk romance set in Scotland. I'm not inherently into steampunk, but I enjoyed this book, which like Slow Summer Kisses managed plenty of character development in its short length. (I'm working on a novella now myself, so I suppose I'm studying the form.)