Book Review: Death at the Manor (Lily Adler Mystery #3) by Katharine Schellman

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Genre: Historical Mystery
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Publication Date: August 9th, 2022
Pages: 352, hardcover
Source: NetGalley

Regency widow Lily Adler is looking forward to spending the autumn away from the social whirl of London society. When she arrives in Hampshire with her friends, Lord and Lady Carroway, she doesn’t expect much more than a quiet country visit and the chance to spend time with her charming new acquaintance, Matthew Spencer.
But something odd is afoot in the small country village. A ghost has taken up residence in the Belleford manor, a lady in grey who wanders the halls at night, weeping and wailing. Half the servants have left in terror, but the family is delighted with the notoriety that their ghost provides. Piqued by this spectral guest, Lily and her party immediately make plans to visit Belleford.
They arrive at the manor the next morning ready to be entertained—but tragedy has struck. The matriarch of the family has just been found smothered to death in her bed.
There was no one else in her room, and the door was locked from the inside. The dead woman’s family is convinced that the ghost is responsible. The servants are keeping secrets. The local magistrate is flummoxed. Lily is determined to learn the truth before another victim turns up—but could she be next in line for the Great Beyond?

Lily Adler’s third case is a death that may have been caused by a ghost. In Death at the Manor, Lily, along with her friends Lord and Lady Carroway, are on a visit to Lily’s aunt in Hampshire. There have been recent sightings of a “Grey Lady” at the local manor, so Lily and Ophelia wish to investigate. Matthew Spencer, who may or may not be a potential beau, is a neighbor of the Wrights, and assists with their investigation.

While good, this book may be suffering from sophomore slump, even though it’s the third in the series. I think this is largely due to the absence of Jack and Simon. Matthew may be a potential suitor, but he isn’t the foil for Lily the way the other two are. It was nice that Lily and Ophelia got to spend more time together, and we got to spend time with the Carroways as a couple and see more of their relationship.

I also think the book couldn’t decide what it wanted to be, a Regency romance, a cozy mystery, or a gothic. It led to some slow pacing and an overall disjointedness. That said, it’s still a really good mystery on its own merits, and if I hadn’t had the previous two to which to compare, I’d probably have rated this one more highly.

DNF Book Review: So Happy For You by Celia Laskey

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Genre: girl i don’t even know, it says it’s meant to be a humorous thriller but it fails in both those categories
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Publication Date: June 7th, 2022
Pages: 304, hardcover
Source: Library

A wedding weekend spirals out of control in this bold, electrifying, hilarious novel about the complexities of female friendship
Robin and Ellie have been best friends since childhood. When Robin came out, Ellie was there for her. When Ellie’s father died, Robin had her back. But when Ellie asks Robin to be her maid of honor, she is reluctant. A queer academic, Robin is dubious of the elaborate wedding rituals now sweeping the nation, which go far beyond champagne toasts and a bouquet toss. But loyalty wins out, and Robin accepts.
Yet, as the wedding weekend approaches, a series of ominous occurrences lead Robin to second-guess her decision. It seems that everyone in the bridal party is out to get her. Perhaps even Ellie herself.
Manically entertaining, viciously funny and eerily campy, So Happy for You is the ultimate send-up to our collective obsession with the wedding industry complex and a riveting, unexpectedly poignant depiction of friendship in all its messy glory.

101/304

The dustjacket summary calls this a “satire”, but I’m not entirely certain Laskey manages to pull that off. I got to 101 pages when I decided my unease with how Laskey was portraying Robin and her group of “rabid feminist” friends was a good enough reason to quit reading, in addition to me skimming the end and seeing Robin call herself a “rage-a-holic” for getting upset and angry when people have bigoted opinions (or as the book tries to calls it, “opinions different from hers.”)

The thing is, up until that point in the novel, Robin hadn’t gone out of her way to seek out bigoted opinions. The biggest example I can think of is when she’s teaching her feminist studies class and she’s pushing her students to think critically about, you know, feminist theories. The thing she’s paid to do. (I just now caught on to the fact that Laskey made Robin a college professor trying to teach her students about so-called “liberal ideas”, a.k.a. an accusation Republicans love to throw at colleges. This is icky to me.)

There’s also a bit where Ellie is stated as feeling like she “can’t say anything right around [Robin’s] friends” and Robin backs this up because Ellie asked a trans friend of Robin’s if he’d “fully transitioned” yet. The way it’s written, we’re made to think both parties are at fault and being ridiculous — but moreso Robin’s, because how dare they hurt Ellie’s feelings by being like, “Uh, maybe don’t ask that right off the bat?”

The ending makes it seem like both Ellie and Robin have huge flaws, but I dunno, y’all, wanting people to be treated equally and seen as human and getting upset when others hold opinions that view those people as less than isn’t really a huge flaw to me! There’s also nothing wrong with being friends mainly with people who share your opinions. If you view me as deserving of less rights than others simply because I’m queer, or fat, or a woman, or whatever, I don’t really want to hang out with you. If that makes me a rabid feminist, oh well!

I don’t know, maybe I’m being overly critical here, but with the severe feminist backlash we’re in the middle of, I think writers need to be a little more careful about what portrayals they put out in their books. I’m not saying don’t write it entirely. But really ask yourself what you’re hoping to accomplish with it, and if it does more harm than good.

Any commentary Laskey tried to make about the wedding industrial complex were sort of lost in my uneasy feelings about the treatment of Robin and her friends. So, in the end, maybe this just wasn’t for me.

Book Review: August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White

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Genre: Sci-Fi
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: July 12th, 2022
Pages: 464, paperback
Source: NetGalley

When an army of giant robot AIs threatens to devastate Earth, a virtuoso pianist becomes humanity’s last hope in this bold, lightning-paced, technicolor new space opera series from the author of A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe.
Jazz pianist Gus Kitko expected to spend his final moments on Earth playing piano at the greatest goodbye party of all time, and maybe kissing rockstar Ardent Violet, before the last of humanity is wiped out forever by the Vanguards–ultra-powerful robots from the dark heart of space, hell-bent on destroying humanity for reasons none can divine.
But when the Vanguards arrive, the unthinkable happens–the mecha that should be killing Gus instead saves him. Suddenly, Gus’s swan song becomes humanity’s encore, as he is chosen to join a small group of traitorous Vanguards and their pilots dedicated to saving humanity.
Love, mechas, and music at the end of the world – what’s not to love? August Kitko is a loveable, awkward, semi-successful jazz musician who ends up playing a song that just might save humanking. Being a hero is all well and good, but can he save both the world and his new relationship?

This is the first book in The Starmetal Symphony series by Alex White. As the story opens, humanity is about to be destroyed by killer robots from outer space (yes, really), called the Vanguards. At one of the many apocalypse parties, August Kitko meets rockstar Ardent Violet, and falls head over heels for them. Unfortuntately, a Vanguard named Greymalkin also knocks Gus head over heels. Gus has five minutes to save the world before he dies.

Gus is an adorable everyman, caught up in something way bigger than he is and for which he seems wholly unprepared, both with the Vanguard and Ardent. The story is sparkly and fun and exciting, and you will absolutely have a soundtrack going through your head for most of the ride. Ardent is less Bowie and more Pete Burns, I felt, and Gus? Maybe Paul Simon? Gus and Ardent’s first jam had me humming “Doomsday Disco” by Lord of the Lost. I’m not sure whether I wanted the author to include the soundtrack they played writing this (if any) or if I was glad I could imagine my own.

Beneath all the shiny, there’s a sweet love story, some Pacific Rim-style fights, and the mystery of why the Vanguards want to destroy humans to solve. The story is covered with glitter and fire and light, and is face-paced and noisy. You can help but root for Gus, and Ardent, self-centered, but utterly loyal to Gus, will grow on you. Probably. If not, you’ll like them because they love Gus.

The story is told from both Gus’s and Ardent’s points-of-view, and I felt that the Ardent chapters were less successful than the Gus ones. That’s partially because almost all the mecha are in the Gus chapters, but also because, well, Ardent isn’t entirely likeable, and the action drags in their sections. I also felt that their “love at first sight” was a bit convenient, but then, hey, it WAS the end of the world, and they were immediately thrown into battle.

Fun, if a bit clunky in places. You won’t be sorry you tuned in.

Miranda’s June Reading Wrap Up

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Happy summer! I’ve been in a bit of a slump since June, though thankfully not as bad as the slump I was in during February. Part of it is that work has been busy, so when I get home I don’t have much energy to sit down and read; I also can’t listen to a lot of audiobooks because I had to be more active at work. Things should hopefully calm down now that work is slowing down again.

Of course, now I get to show off the spreads for my reading journal in June. And since it was Pride, of course I put rainbows everywhere.

After receiving the June sticker pack from Pipsticks, I decided to use all of them in this set up. I also used some scrapbooking paper. I especially loved the butterflies in the sticker pack.

I did manage to read 17 books and listen to 7 audiobooks in June. Three of them were rereads. I also DNF’d 6 books. Overall I read 3,116 pages and listened to 4,668 minutes of audiobooks. My favorite book in June was She Gets the Girl by Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick — I swooned. My average rating for June was 3.5, which is the highest it’s been so far!

This is the second month I’m trying out a calendar in my reading journal, and I’m still really enjoying it, although I’ve found I forget to actually sit down and put the tape and stickers in (as you can tell by the absence of both in days 23-30). I’ll try to be better about it in July.

Last up is my mood tracker and a new feature I added in June!

I trimmed down the number of moods I tracked in July and drew a Pride flag as my tracker. Save for a handful of bad days (thanks, Supreme Court!) June was mostly okay for me.

After I wrote down my key, I still had a large space of unused paper on the left hand side. In May’s spread, I used it to stamp some flowers and color them in, but I didn’t have anything that I felt really fit in June. Then I decided to add a “gratitude log”. I tend to be a negative person, and with the world the way it is, I thought adding a gratitude log would maybe help me. This was added about a week into June so a lot of early days are blank because my memory is awful and I couldn’t really think of anything. It’s a work in progress, I think.

Now for the books I read in June…

I reread the first three volumes of Witch Hat Atelier, then got caught up to what the library has available. I also finally read Nimona, which was great. My favorite physical book was probably SPYxFAMILY, which was charming as hell.

I didn’t burn through as many audiobooks this month, which is a bit sad, but overall I liked most of the ones I listened to. The only one I was underwhelmed by was Daughter of Sparta, which started out strong but ultimately went on too long and proved not to be to my taste as far as the romance went. But, my favorite audiobook (and overall book) of June was She Gets the Girl, as I said before. Loved it. I hope these two authors write more together soon.

So that’s it for me! What did you read in June? If you have a reading journal, how did you decorate it last month?