reading list - july - september 2022

Amy Lea, Set on You. NY: Jove, 2022.

Crystal is a fitness trainer, so when a new guy steals her spot at the gym, he’s in for trouble. That he turns out to be her Grandmother’s fiancee’s favorite grandson further complicates... whatever it is they have.


Lily Chu, The Stand-In. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2021.

Gracie is buying coffee when a photographer ambushes her. Next day, she is asked, by the woman for whom she was mistaken, to act as a body double. Since she just lost her job, Gracie agrees, beginning an adventure that changes every part of her life.


Cat Sebastian, Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes. NY: Avon, 2022.

When Lady Marian receives a note suggesting that her husband, the Duke of Claire, has a prior, valid marriage which will be kept secret for a small price, she ends up with the blackmailer tied to a rented bed. It is not her first exercise in misadventure, or her last.


Robert Thorogood, Marlow Murder Club. Naperville, IL: Poisoned Pen, 2021.

Judith is a little old widow who composes crosswords and goes for a nightly swim in the Thames. That’s when she hears a shot at her neighbor’s. And since the police can’t crack the case, much less the two more murders that soon follow, Judith recruits some friends to give detective work a go.


Eliza Sussman, Funny You Should Ask. NY: Dell, 2022.

Chani is just starting out when she’s assigned a profile of the latest James Bond actor, an American named Gabe who has previously only had himbo roles. Her piece goes viral and he becomes a star. Ten years later, he’s lost the part (and his Bond Girl wife), and management hopes a reprise of their interview will rehabilitate his image. Gabe and Chani each, separately, have similar hopes.


Cat Sebastian, Queer Principles of Kit Webb. NY: Avon, 2021.

The other half of a scheme targeting the Duke of Claire, this is the story of Perry, the Duke’s second son, and the highwayman-turned-coffeeshop owner Kit whom he hires to steal from his father in order to pay off the blackmailer who would expose Percy’s illegitimacy.


Lauren Forsythe, Fixer Upper. NY: Putnam, 2022.

Aly has spent too much time without promotion at work, and too much time on guys who leave her, then get their sh-t together. She wants her own guy, but only seems able to make one better for someone else to benefit. So she decides to put her two problems together, creating a solution for women everywhere with her new business.


Katherine Center, Bodyguard. NY: St. Martin’s, 2022.

Hannah’s new assignment -- just after her mom dies and her boyfriend dumps her -- is guarding her favorite movie star, incognito. So, pretending to be Jack Stapleton’s girlfriend. Yeah, it’s awful. How can she not fall for him?


Tobin Buhk, Wicked Women of Detroit. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2018.

Another installment in what seems to be an attempt to catalog crime in every American city, this one focuses on a string of women (there’s also a book of old white men, don’t worry) who shocked sensibilities not with scandalous statements or sexuality, but good ol’ murder.


Damian Duffy & John Jennings, Octavia E Butler’s Kindred. NY: Abrams Comicrafts, 2017.

Dina, a black writer, is moving into her new house when she comes unstuck in time. This graphic adaptation, features muted color and a frantic, almost hallucinatory quality that reinforces Dina's confusion as she is repeatedly drawn back to the Maryland plantation where her family began. An unflinching glimpse into life before the Civil War, it is appropriate for high school history and literature classes in which discussion of uncomfortable themes is allowed.


Catherine McKenzie, et al; First Street. NY Serial Box, 2020.

A multi-author legal thriller featuring clerks at the Supreme Court which ends abruptly and without any sort of resolution, as if merely preview of a much longer work. I would generally approve; endings are too often contrived. This, however, feels like a budget ran out and writing stopped mid-plan.

Preslaysa Williams, Low Country Bride. NY: HarperCollins, 2021.

Maya designs bridal gowns, and is on the verge of a big promotion when her father breaks his hip. She goes home to help him and, predictably, has cause to question her plans. Yet the only real obstacle to happiness is her own self-doubt.


N. Scott Momaday, Ancient Child. NY: Doubleday, 1989.

Set Lockman is an artist in crisis; Set doesn't’ know that he is a bear. Grey, however, recognizes him and helps him become whole in this dreamlike drift between fiction and myth. The Worcester Meat death scene alone makes it worth reading; that scene ranks near a spicy Salman Rushdie chapter and Bokononism’s Last Rites among my favorites.


Nathanial Whitten & Walter Morton, Superoptimist Guide to Unconventional Living. NY: Vitally Important, 2022.

A follow-up to Secrets of the Superoptimist, this volume continues espousing belief that one can change life for the better by changing one’s attitude. Presenting a number of tips for changing perspective or seeing opportunity in difficult situations, it is a good reminder that our attitudes determine our moods and that, if we wish to be happy,we should be happy.


Tessa Bailey; Hook, Line, & Sinker. NY: HarperCollins, 2022.

In this follow-up to It Happened One Summer, Piper’s little sister Hannah, who works for a film production company, convinces the director that Westport is a perfect setting for his current project, and the romance she started with Fox last summer quickly heats up again.


Ali Hazelwood, Love Hypothesis. NY: Jove, 2021.

Olive is a graduate student at Stanford (in a better program that Elizabeth Zott, thankfully), working on a better test for pancreatic cancer. Olive wants to convince her best friend that Olive’s ex really is fair game, so she lies about having a date with a different guy. When her friend shows up unexpectedly, Olive panics and kisses the only man handy - the most hard-assed professor in the department. Somehow, he doesn’t seem to mind.


Ali Hazelwood, Love on the Brain. NY: Jove, 2022.

Another smart girl, this time a neuroscientist, in the same story as Love Hypothesis. Which was slightly surprising; authors don’t ususally recycle plots so immediately, though both Austen and Shakespeare did so with regularity and great effect. This, likewise, is a worthwhile reprise: Bee’s obsession with Marie Curie is delightful,and unwrapping the confusion that is her love life is a process full of amusing cringe. Hazelwood’s characters are sharp and well-drawn, their situation is interesting, and there’s even a nice little rant against the Graduate Record Exam (which I took three times).


Ali Hazelwood, Under One Roof. NY: Jove, 2022.

Okay, this time it’s an environmental engineer with the EPA thrown together with a corporate attorney who slowly realized that her supposed nemesis actually feels quite differently. I probably wouldn’t even notice it’s the same as the last two if I weren’t reading everything from Dr. Hazelton at once -- and wouldn’t be reading it all all if I weren’t enjoying each presentation of the plot.