Spotlights for December 2022

 

 Here are a few of the new releases from December of 2022 that I didn't write a blog post on, but a spotlight through Goodreads reviews:

Empire of Ice and Snow: The Disastrous & Heroic Voyage of the Karluk -Buddy Levy    

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Release Date: December 6, 2022

Nonfiction/Polar Exploration

Set against the backdrop of the Titanic disaster and World War I, filled with heroism, tragedy, and scientific discovery, Buddy Levy's Empire of Ice and Stone tells the story of two men and two distinctively different brands of leadership: one selfless, one self-serving, and how they would forever be bound by one of the most audacious and disastrous expeditions in polar history, considered the last great voyage of The Heroic Age of Discovery.

 Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America- Leila Philip

Rating: 📚📚📚

Release Date: December 6, 2022

Nonfiction/Science/Environmental

Before the American empires of steel and coal and oil, before the railroads, there was the empire of fur. BEAVERLAND tells the tumultuous, eye-opening story of how beavers and the beaver trade shaped American history and culture and our environment. Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver’s profound influence on our nation’s early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires.

 

Into the West: Mercedes Lackey 

Rating: 📚📚📚

Release Date: December 13, 2022

Fantasy

Baron Valdemar and his people have found a temporary haven, but it cannot hold all of them, or for long. Trouble could follow on their heels at any moment, and there are too many people for Crescent Lake to support. Those who are willing to make a further trek by barge on into the West will follow him into a wilderness depopulated by war and scarred by the terrible magics of a thousand years ago and the Mage Wars. But the wilderness is not as empty as it seems. There are potential friends and rapacious foes....

....and someone is watching them.

 Tudors in Love: Passion and Politics in the Age of England's Most Famous Dynasty- Sarah Gristwood

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Release Date: December 13, 2022

Nonfiction/Medieval History

In this ground-breaking history, Sarah Gristwood reveals the way courtly love made and marred the Tudor dynasty. From Henry VIII declaring himself as the ‘loyal and most assured servant' of Anne Boleyn to the poems lavished on Elizabeth I by her suitors, the Tudors re-enacted the roles of the devoted lovers and capricious mistresses first laid out in the romances of medieval literature. The Tudors in Love dissects the codes of love, desire and power, unveiling romantic obsessions that have shaped the history of the world

Into the West

 Into the West (Founding of Valdemar #2) - Mercedes Lackey

Rating: 📚📚📚

Release Date: December 13, 2022

Synopsis: Baron Valdemar and his people have found a temporary haven, but it cannot hold all of them, or for long. Trouble could follow on their heels at any moment, and there are too many people for Crescent Lake to support. Those who are willing to make a further trek by barge on into the West will follow him into a wilderness depopulated by war and scarred by the terrible magics of a thousand years ago and the Mage Wars. But the wilderness is not as empty as it seems. There are potential friends and rapacious foes....

....and someone is watching them.

____________________________________________________

In the sequel to BEYOND, Mercedes Lackey picks up pretty much where Book 1 left off. Baron Kordas and his people have fled the Empire and are now looking for a new home where they aren't going to dispossess anyone already living there. Most of the book felt very much like a 'bridge' book, that awkward book between where things start and how things end that doesn't quite know how to keep up the pace. It is character driven, alternating between Kordas and Delia as each of them becomes used to their new lives on the move, how best to do what needs to be done in order to survive, and what their new role really is in everything. I liked seeing behind Kordas' facade: seeing his concerns and flaws and how very human he is, how unsure he is of what he's doing and how much trouble he has delegating things to others because of how much responsibility he feels. If you've read other trilogies in the Valdermar cannon you know that the myth of the first King is him being pretty much perfect, so it's good to see the human truth behind that myth. Delia was a bit more annoying for me. Her crush on Kordas felt forced, especially since he's married to her sister. But I liked seeing her growing up and coming into her own with her Gift.

The pace was really slow for about 3/4s of the book, with little side quests and plenty of repetitious speeches about who they should strive to be as a people along the way. Then, right when I didn't think I could handle anymore, BANG!, everything changed and I couldn't put the book down.

*Warning: Mild spoilers ahead*

A touch of 'deus ex machina' suddenly makes anyone familiar with the cannon reevaluate everything they've been reading when the HawkBrothers arrive with the perfect place for our refugees to live. If you haven't read the others, that's ok, you're mostly just missing 'Easter eggs'. Now things go from plodding to the more interesting how-to-turn-a-Vale-into-a-city, meeting people who use amazing amounts of magic, different sentient species, and you see how Valdemar is going to start coming together. 

I admit, I am still not a fan of Lackey's 'newer' style of writing, which uses a more relaxed writing style, more rambling and tangents, plenty of 'now's and 'well's, as if we are listening to someone talking or thinking out loud even when we aren't. But it has been her style for long enough now that I've learned to deal with it, even though I prefer her older writing style better. The basic plot is still interesting enough that I want to find out what happens and how it will happen.

I definitely recommend reading BEYOND first, as Book 1 in the series will help you get invested in the characters and their journey beforehand.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Well Traveled

 Well Traveled- Jen DeLuca

Berkley

Release Date: December 6, 2022

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: A high-powered attorney from a success-oriented family, Louisa "Lulu" Malone lives to work, and everything seems to be going right, until the day she realizes it’s all wrong. Lulu’s cousin Mitch introduced her to the world of Renaissance Faires, and when she spies one at a time just when she needs an escape, she leaps into the welcoming environment of turkey legs, taverns, and tarot readers. The only drawback? Dex MacLean: a guitarist with a killer smile, the Casanova of the Faire… and her traveling companion for the summer.

Dex has never had to work for much in his life, and why should he? Touring with his brothers as The Dueling Kilts is going great, and he always finds a woman at every Faire. But when Lulu proves indifferent to his many plaid charms and a shake-up threatens the fate of the band, Dex must confront something he never has before: his future.
 
Forced to spend days and nights together on the road, Lulu’s interest in the kilted bad boy grows as he shows her a side of himself no one else has seen. The stresses of her old lifestyle fade away as she learns to trust her intuition and follow her heart instead of her head. But when her time on the road is over, will Lulu go with her gut, or are she and Dex destined for separate paths?

_______________________________________________________________

Louisa "Lulu" Malone comes from a family of overachievers and has been working so hard to get ahead in her high powered law firm that she longer remembers what its like to enjoy, let alone have, a life. One Saturday the boss pushes too far and she realizes just how ridiculous it all is. Her phone winds up a tub of water and she's having a minor meltdown in the middle of a Renaissance Faire. Fortunately, Stacey (Well Played) and the Dueling Kilts are there and offer her a ride since they're headed to Willow Creek, where Lulu's cousin Mitch (Well Matched) lives. With no job and no electronics, Lulu is forced to unplug and take stock of her life. Which includes not only admitting she hasn't relaxed in five or six years, but includes noticing her traveling companions- like hot guitar player Dex MacLean.

Everyone says Dex is only out for a good time, the Lothario with a girl at every Faire. And at first he flirts outrageously with Lulu, exactly like his reputation. But as she ignores his ridiculous flirting, Dex becomes more like the rest of the band, a casual friend. Eventually, she sees something in him that his family seems to have overlooked. That maybe there's more to Dex than just a good time. 

At first I wasn't sure about this pairing. How was Dex going to become someone we could properly swoon over when readers of the series knew him as a good time guy who is pretty much allergic to relationships? But the answer is to never doubt Jen DeLuca. By bringing in Lulu she gives Dex someone who doesn't know him or his reputation ahead of time, someone both willing to accept what she sees and to see behind the front to the person he's becoming. Dex is adorable as he confusedly discovers he might want a relationship after all and I had to hand it to him- he made far fewer mistakes than many guys make. I loved Lulu as the strong, take-charge-take-names person she is who can also be vulnerable, and discover a softer, mystic side to herself. This was a lovely people-can-change book; not necessarily because of love, but because of opening themselves up to new things, new opportunities, new people, and discovering what does make them happy instead of what they think should make them happy (or make others happy).  

Jen DeLuca is back and she brought the whole Faire with her! What's not to like about a strong woman doubting herself, finding herself (and love), thanks to the magic that is the Renaissance Faire? Nothing, that's what. Huzzah and rejoice and the latest Jen DeLuca romance-Well Traveled is not just a beautiful cover!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review