A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna

genre: contemporary fantasy/romance

Sera's kind of magic is a gift, so powerful when that an unbelievably complex spell is needed to save someone she loves, Sera doesn't hesitate. But using that kind of power has consequences and Sera's magic is diminished in a devastating way. With her reservoirs of power a mere shadow of what they once were, Sera leans into running her family's inn. The Inn is a quirky old thing, enchanted by Sera's spells, a haven for all who might need a gentle place to land. 

This is a family-you-choose kind of story with a lovely romantic thread, solid banter and the kind of whimsy that made for a cozy and really fun read. The characters, the setting, the plot - it worked together for me in a perfectly snug sort of way. There is pain here, it's not just fluff, but the way it's processed and learned from made this more than just fun - it was thoughtful too. I didn't know that romantic light fantasy was what I needed right now, but apparently it is.

The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes by Chanel Cleeton (audiobook)

 genre:  historical fiction

This book is a blending of three storylines.  In the present day we have Margo who has been hired to find a rare book for a client.  In the 1960s, we have the Cuban librarian Pilar, struggling to live in post-revolution Cuba where any hint of anti-Fidel sentiment is swiftly dealt with.  And in the 1900s, we meet Eva, the author of the rare book Margo is trying to find.  

I didn't find the moving between three time periods to be frustrating, I enjoyed it.  Each story is different enough that it's easy to track and all of these women find themselves making tough choices and living with the consequences.  I always like to learn about Cuba and the Diaspora, and this novel does a good job of helping us have compassion for the hardships of this country and its people.  I didn't love the writing, sorry to say.  It often felt cliche and just never really surprised me - I could practically guess the dialogue. What I did enjoy is it's homage to the written word and how important stories are when the human experience can be so deeply painful.  It's not a bad book at all, it just doesn't stand out to me literarily.

Holiday Romance by Catherine Walsh

 genre: contemporary romance

Molly and Andrew both live in Chicago and, as luck would have it, they both travel back home to Ireland for the holidays every year.  Soon, being on this flight together is a tradition and even as years go by and partners come and go for both of them, this friendship is a solid thing.  One crazy flight, though, and friendship no longer seems like enough.  This friends-to-lovers, holiday travel, quirky family love story actually kinda hit the spot for me, I'm not gonna lie.  The cheesy title had initially turned me off and made my family make fun of me, honestly, ha ha.  But I'm glad I gave it a try because Andrew is a darling and Molly is just complicated enough and it was just the brain candy I needed for this time of year.  It goes back and forth in time but you're never out of the current plot for too long.  There's some good banter and just enough tenderness, I genuinely had a good time.

The Compound by Aisling Rawle (audiobook)

 genre: speculative fiction

When Lily arrives at The Compound, she has no memory of getting there.  That's part of the shtick.  The girls all get there first, the boys arriving a few days later.  The goal of being at The Compound?  Be the last to leave.  But getting to the end is the point of the whole game.  

It's reality TV/dystopian brain candy.  There are relationship dramas and easy tasks and hard tasks, and everything comes with a prize - or a punishment.  Backbiting and betrayals are rampant, of course, as are true friendships and maybe even love.  And Lily wants it ALL.  She's not a particularly empathetic heroine.  Nothing really makes her standout and we see the entire competition through her eyes.  As a narrator, she can be frustratingly materialistic and shallow.  But she also knows it?  Honestly, this just was an really interesting listen.  It really surprised me sometimes and the whole concept never felt like I had to work hard to suspend my disbelief.  

Love, Sex, and Frankenstein: A Novel by Caroline Lea

genre: historical fiction

This past summer I learned the amazing fact that the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, early American philosopher and women's rights advocate, is Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. It felt so powerful to me, the idea that having a mom who saw the world with such clarity could possibly have had an impact on this girl and her famous story.  When we meet the woman who will become Mary Shelley, she is already the lover of poet, Percy Shelley, and has had his child. She’s living in poverty and is scraping by not only in a very literal sense but also intellectually and emotionally. She is adrift and scrambling so hard for love that she is constantly betraying herself in the strange love triangle she finds herself in as both a stepsister and the lover of a man who is already married.

Mary’s desperate need to process her life in writing is constantly undermined by the people around her and by that little voice inside her telling her that that she is not good enough.  Not only is this book a retelling of what let up to the book Frankenstein being written, but it is also about the power of female rage. It is about a woman's brain being being so focused on making everyone everyone around her happy that she can literally forget who she even is. It’s about what can happen to a person who chooses to live beyond that place.  This book is about childhood trauma and the act of creation and about how creating can change us.  It is also about betrayal and forgiveness, and, most, especially, about realizing that living up to our own expectations of our ourselves is more important than pleasing anyone else. The word "sex" in the title is less about the act (although there is that) but more about "sex" as gender and a woman having her blinders removed to the reality of how her gender has been used as a vice to control her and keep her small.   It is lush and painfully sad and gorgeous and atmospheric, and I loved it.

Heart the Lover by Lily King (audiobook)

 genre: literary fiction

Our narrator loves words.  She is at college to study them and hopefully, maybe, write her own book someday.  And when she meets Sam and his roommate Yash, who are living the sort of collegiate intellectual life she's craving, she leans in.  She's given the nickname of Jordan.  She falls in love. She studies and works hard and slowly grows up.  Life teaches hard lessons, though, and one of them is learning what we can and cannot control.

I sank right into this study of learning and love and complicated friendships.  Sometimes our narrator (we really don't even know her real name until the end!) is frustrating but in the way that all college students can be frustrating as they figure themselves out and want so much to be grown up but are in some ways still making such painfully short sighted decisions.   It made me feel a LOT, especially the last third of the book.  SO many feelings about life and love and parenthood and the love of our youth that never really leaves us.  I was surprised by how strong my feelings were and I loved this book for that, for making me yearn and grieve and feel truly invested in a story.

Ruth by Kate Riley

 genre: fiction

When Ruth is born into The Brotherhood, she is celebrated the way that all babies are celebrated.  In a community where the self is dead last on the list of priorities, Ruth learns quickly that she is nothing special.  It order to gain God's grace, she needs to make sure that her community continues to thrive and that she keeps allllll the rules that have been put in place to keep her from sin.  There are so many ways to sin, when you are Ruth and growing up on a Hutterite commune.  

On the one hand, this is phenomenal writing.  Over and over, the author's way with words truly jumped out at me in delightful phrases really captured the essence of something.  Learning about commune life is wild and really interesting and I have a lot of compassion for people who truly do believe that living this way is the road to happiness.  On the other hand, Ruth felt like an enigma.  She is wacky and kind of hates her life but also absolutely chooses to live it the way it is.  I wanted her to just see it for what it is and break free but she never got there, even though she could tell things felt off a little bit.  This is no Handmaid's Tale, in my opinion, because there is no real rage and it is hard to watch, this Patriarchal death grip on people's choices.  Like, EVERY choice.

Interesting book.

Vagabond by Tim Curry (audiobook)

 genre: memoir

I have been a fan of Tim Curry all my life. I first adored him in Annie and most especially in Clue, where he hilariously stole my heart in way that has endeared him to me in a real way I’ve watched him as the Pirate King on YouTube and loved him in Oscar, which I saw in the theater as a kid. OH and now I’ve seen him in Home Alone 2 now 17 times because my kids were obsessed, ha! I was too young to have Rocky Horror be a part of my life but I’ve always been aware of it out there in the zeitgeist. But my most favorite thing he’s done is his guest role on Psych as Nigel St Nigel and his deadpan lines in that episode will live on in our family forever.

I bought the audiobook both to support him and to hear him read it, unaware ahead of time that he’d suffered a stroke several years ago, so his voice is different. He’s still in there and you can hear the sarcasm and sometimes he actually laughed while reading. It was slow enough that I read on 2.3x but it really endeared him to me even more, learning about not just his hardships but all the opportunities he took advantage of, many I’d forgotten about or never even knew of. I had no idea about his childhood and I enjoyed learning about his early years as much as his time on the stage and screen. He’s vulnerable and honest and I just found myself grateful that he and his work have been a part of my life.

Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

genre: social history

I've been on a quest for the last decade to read the stories of women from the past, written in their own words.  There is a part of me that literally yearns to understand what it was like to be a women in times so different from my own.  When I saw this book at the thrift store, it immediately went into my cart not just because of the title but because of the author.  The two other books I've read by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich have had a deep influence on me and on how I look at a woman's place in early America.  This book, while admittedly sometimes a bit dry and slow, is also a fascinating look at the role women DID play in colonial time.  I think what's important about it is that whenever we discuss that period, we really only ever talk about men and what they were doing - with the exception of the Salem Witch Trials (which is briefly discussed in the book).

In this book we learn, with primary source documentation, that women were not just influential but a profound and necessary part of our country's growth and development.  We can also see the beginnings of some social movements (away from midwifery to obstetricians, for example) as well as how the Patriarchal order impacted the roles women could and did play.

It's a history book and it's not the kind that's written like a story.  It is a well-researched and deeply important treasure trove of knowledge of our fore-mothers and the context in which they learned and grew.

Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley (audiobook)

genre: young adult contemporary fiction

Lucy knows it is time to be on the run again.  Ever since her father died, the idea of "home" has been nebulous as various foster placements have resulted in relationships both stable and traumatic.  She only recently has learned that she is connected to the Ojibwe tribe but when Mr. Jameson shows up at the diner where she's working to try and expand that connection, Lucy knows she's better off on her own.  Until one moment changes everything and being alone is no longer an option.

The book is told in two time periods, sharing with us Lucy's experience growing up and in foster care switching to the present and how she's processing where she's ended up.  The truth is that it reads really fast, various mysterious threads and my desires to learn more about the Ojibwe people as well as the political and social ramifications of how our country has treated its First Peoples kept me very interested. I had to suspend my disbelief a lot when it came to the mystery plot.  For whatever reason, my brain just kept asking too many annoying questions that weren't really answered.  But overall, Boulley tells important stories in engaging ways, even if this one isn't my favorite of hers.