The Butler

 The Butler- Claire Mackintosh

Podium Publishing

Release Date: June 16, 2026

Rating: 📚📚📚

Synopsis: The South of France is stunning, though not without its imperfections, from pickpockets to burglars to the occasional cold-blooded killer. But in his twenty-five years of service, Baxter—with a spotless reputation as a polished, well-mannered butler—has never run into any issues catering to the ultrawealthy. Until now.

Baxter's latest assignment is at Villa Sérénité, where Alec Prescott is hosting a colorful cast of characters, including his ex-wife, his much younger lady friend, and some Hollywood hotshots, after the Cannes Film Festival. But it doesn't take long for a week of sun, wine, and a family birthday celebration to devolve into bickering and backstabbing. And soon, secrets aren't the only thing floating to the surface . . .

When one of the guests is found dead in the villa's glittering pool, the unflappable Baxter must assist the gendarmes in determining who's responsible. With some standing to gain and others motivated to take it away, fingers are pointed in all directions. A good butler is expected to see everything and say nothing—but what if he too becomes a target?

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Baxter is the perfect butler: professional demeanor, thinks of everything ahead of time, lets nothing phase him. He's been hired to buttle for a home in Cannes over the film fest, where wealthy Alec Prescott is hosting film friends and family to celebrate his son's birthday. But more than a few hours into the weeklong party and backstabbing and old feuds emerge. When someone winds up dead in the pool, it isn't a huge surprise but it is inconvenient. All three of the staff are sheduled for other jobs soon and can't afford to hang around while the cops think about solving things. With the help of a local pickpocket called Red they decide to take matters into their own hands and solve the crime. Which puts Baxter on top of the killer's target list.

The Butler  is the first book by Claire Macintosh I've read, but as someone writing a nonfiction book about butlers in mystery novels, how could I pass this up? It was a fun, quick read, almost a cozy mystery with wonderful descriptions of food, locations, views, etc. The end of the book definitely left open the possibilty for more to come, which would be great. Macintosh revealed tiny glimpses of Baxter's past and personality behind his professional facade in a slow-drip way that would suit a series, getting a little more in each book.

Each of the guests is suitably unlikable without the feeling that they all needed to go to jail and by the time we have a dead body we also have plenty of motives. I enjoyed how the staff all decided they were not sitting around for the police to slowly handle things: they all had places to be and other jobs to be getting on with, and would just deal with this themselves, thank you very much. And they do. The end "living room reveal" scene didn't feel very Baxter-like, but I think it hit about every cliche it could manage in a slightly tongue-in-cheek way.

This is a good examply of a book that didn't need a prologue. The writing for the prologue was so over the top just to get to the expected body in the pool I almost put the book down, because there was no way I could have read the book if the writing was like that the whole way through. Fortunately, it wasn't. I recommend skipping those few pages, or just know they don't reflect the book as a whole.

A fun summer mystery. I hope for more Baxter in the future.

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

The Winter Guest

 The Winter Guest- W. C. Ryan

Arcade Crimewise

Release Dare: October 4, 2022

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: January 1921. Though the Great War is over, in Ireland a new civil war is raging. The once-grand Kilcolgan House, a crumbling bastion shrouded in sea mist, lies half empty and filled with ghosts, both real and imagined, while it shelters the surviving members of the Prendeville family. Then, when an IRA ambush goes terribly wrong, Maud Prendeville, Lord Kilcolgan’s eldest daughter, is killed, leaving the family reeling. Yet the IRA column behind the attack insists they left her alive, that someone else must be responsible for her terrible fate. Captain Tom Harkin, an IRA intelligence officer and Maud's former fiancé, is sent to investigate. He becomes an unwelcome guest in this strange, gloomy household.

Working undercover, Harkin must delve into the house's secrets—and discover where, in this fractured, embattled town, allegiances truly lie. But Harkin too is haunted by the ghosts of the past and by his terrible experiences on the battlefields. Can he find the truth about Maud's death before the past—and his strange, unnerving surroundings—overwhelm him?

The Winter Guest is a gripping and immersive read for fans of classic mysteries by the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers along with Charles Todd’s Ian Rutledge series, Ann Cleeves, and Jacqueline Winspear.

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Former Army Captain Tom Harkin survived World War I damaged in mind and spirit only to return to an Ireland still wracked by active war. Many thought they would win Home Rule in the trenches of Europe, now the IRA fight guerrilla war against the English daily on Irish soil. When Tom, now an IRA intelligence officer, hears that his former fiancee Maud Prendeville was murdered in an IRA ambush gone wrong just outside her own home, he agrees to go to her funeral and investigate. But no one wants him asking questions: not the family living in the crumbling mansion; not the IRA, who claim they killed two of the people in the car but left Maud alive; and definitely not the English 'police' who are blaming the IRA for all the deaths. Amid family secrets and political secrets, fears, and ghosts both real and psychological, Harkin must tread carefully to protect his own secrets and try to uncover the truth behind Maud's death.

Tom Harkin is both likable and highly sympathetic main character. His flashbacks and PTSD are heartbreaking, his desire to find the truth behind Maud's death despite the danger to his own life is commendable, and his honesty in acknowledging that he doesn't really know how to investigate murder, especially in his condition, is refreshing for an amateur detective. The atmosphere is a constant presence without being too heavy handed: the grey skies, bleakness and rundown nature of the landscape are a perfect mirror for the Troubles the Irish people are living through, just as the crumbling Kilgolan house mirrors the family living in it. 

I was lucky enough to discover W.C. Ryan's first book, House of Ghosts, when it first came out and I've been watching for a new Ryan  book ever since. And finally, one has arrived! While very different from House of Ghosts, readers won't be disappointed: Ryan has once again combined elements of psychological suspense with postwar trauma, and a touch of the supernatural to create an engrossing and compelling murder mystery. Readers who don't want the supernatural with their murders won't find the ghost aspect overwhelming and those who do like it will find the ghosts add just an edge of supernatural atmosphere to an already atmospheric story.

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

Ithaca

 

Ithaca- Claire North

Redhook/Hachette

Release Date: September 6, 2022

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom.

Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. 
 
No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus' empty throne—not yet. But everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war. Only through cunning, wit, and her trusted circle of maids, can she maintain the tenuous peace needed for the kingdom to survive. 

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Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed off to war with Troy, as did every man of fighting age on Ithaca. Over the ten years that war raged on the plains of Troy, Ithaca sent money and men who reached fighting age off to Troy, and received songs from the poets about their brave fighters in return. The old men who were left nodded and told the boys who remained that this was what being a man was all about. Seven years have passed since the war ended and none of Ithaca's men have returned- including their king. Outsiders and Ithaca's youth alike are starting to circle, trying to decide how to take the throne from a man who must be dead, but hasn't quite been declared dead- especially by his loyal wife and queen, Penelope.

For seventeen years Ithaca has managed to survive: food has made it to tables, trade has continued in the harbors, farms have continued to produce crops. Suitors are fed and the balancing act of hospitality and greed is kept in check. None of the old men question how this is done- until pirates come to Ithaca. Suddenly they have to do something, and they discover while they think they have been running things, they really have no idea what to do.

Ithaca is the book the Greek poets (and plenty of more modern fiction writers) wouldn't think to ask: what happens when the men leave home to go off fighting? The answer is obvious: the women run everything. But in Greece they are hampered by the cultural problem that they cannot be seen to run anything. In ancient Greece women have a strict place and that is behind the scenes, in the women's quarters, in the women's world. How to handle this catch-22 situation? Ithaca is narrated by Hera, the goddess of wives and marriage, a goddess who knows a few things about toxic masculinity and double standards. She doesn't pull any punches in her assessments of the characters she introduces us to and is willing to call a twerp a twerp if that's what she thinks he is- poetic hero or no. Hera doesn't have much use for heroes or poets. But women and queens, those are different matters. In daylight where Penelope plays the perfect Greek wife mourning her husband, in night's shadows where Penelope hunts for clues about the identity of the pirates and builds an army of women to defend Ithaca, Hera shows us all of Ithaca's secrets. 

In case we, as more modern readers, don't understand the situation Penelope would be in if she just stood up and told the men "You lot are idiots, I'm in charge now", there is a secondary story to bring the message home to us. Penelope's cousin Clytemnestra has been ruling Mycenae openly in her husband's absence. Now Agamemnon is back and while there were a few domestic squabbles about lovers on the side, Hera makes sure we understand that really, it was Clytemnestra's decision to rule openly that has led to her downfall. (And a bit of murder.) By the time Penelope's deception with her weaving is discovered we aren't surprised by the violence that nearly comes from it because we understand now- it isn't necessarily about the act itself but about the woman trying to take some control over her own life (or being perceived to take an active role in the lives of men) that is the real problem, and brings about death. Men must always be in control of the narrative. It is why women, even goddesses, must work in shadow and avoid being seen.  But they get the job done.

If you think that Hera is an odd choice of a narrator in the beginning, it won't take long for you to understand that she is the perfect choice to tell this story of women who are ignored or forgotten, belittled, by the men who rule. Remember, none of the stories you think you know about Hera have been told by women either.

An excellent addition to the popular mythology-alternate genre, fans of Madeline Miller, Jennifer Saint, and Natalie Haynes will definitely enjoy this new take on Penelope's story.  

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

An Affair at Stonecliffe

An Affair at Stonecliffe- Candace Camp

HQN

Release Date: May 24, 2022

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Noelle Rutherford would do anything for her young son, Gil. A fiercely independent woman recently widowed, Noelle is determined to raise Gil alone. After all, her late husband Adam Rutherford married her for love, which infuriated his aristocratic family. Gil is Noelle’s whole world, and she will not have him wrested from her by haughty nobles.

But she may not have a choice unless she’s prepared to run.
 
One awful night, Noelle is confronted by Carlisle Thorne, a handsome yet severe, irascible man sent by the Rutherfords. Noelle is horrified when Carlisle offers her money in exchange for taking Gil to be raised at the Rutherford estate, Stonecliffe. Knowing that Carlisle will use any means necessary to take her son from her, Noelle flees, Gil at her side.
 
Thus begins an epic rivalry that spans five years—a battle of wits between two unforgettable characters bound together by fate and fortune. However, when danger threatens, these enemies must come together to protect what matters most… even if it means losing their hearts.

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This book in a new series by Candace Camp was so wonderful to read, I ended up not being able to put it down and read the whole thing in one day! You instantly connect to the emotions of Noelle, a young widow trying to raise her infant son, cope with her grief at her husband's death, her fear of being destitute, and then in comes Carlisle Thorne, a friend of her husband's aristocratic family, wanting to buy her baby and take it away from her to her husband's family. She runs and is on the run for the next five years, avoiding attempts of kidnappers to take her son. When Noelle and Carlisle meet again her fear and his exasperation come across as if you are feeling them yourself, and the reader starts to wonder (before the main characters) if there is something else going on- because if Carlisle is not behind the kidnapping attempts, who is? 

There are some excellent plot twists right up to the end to keep you guessing. Every secondary character is well done, and essential, and you instantly want to know more about them. I can't wait for characters like Nathan, Annabeth, and Sloane to have their own books to discover their secrets! Noelle and Carlisle shift from enemies to lovers with what felt like the right amount of timing and tension, and a delicious amount of chemistry and misunderstanding. Noelle may be one of the strongest characters I've read in awhile- she takes everything life throws at her and refuses to break under any of it. 

Beautifully written, well paced, and delightful characters, this is an absolute must read for romance readers. Candace Camp fans will rejoice in the start of this new series!

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

Book Lovers

 Book Lovers- Emily Henry

Berkley/Penguin Group

Release Date: May 3, 2022

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Nora Stephens' life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.

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Confession- this is the first of Emily Henry's books that I've read, despite knowing that they are hugely popular and selling about a million of them as a bookseller. That said, I wasn't sure what to expect from the book. Was I going to love it because everyone loves Emily Henry's other books or be really disappointed because everyone loves Emily Henry's other books?

The writing style wasn't one I was a fan of- it went a little too stream of consciousness and heavy on the descriptive metaphors for me. Because of that it took me awhile to get into the book, but when I did, I really enjoyed the plot.  It's a clever reverse on the typical romance book trope. Nora is the character who is career driven, focused, problem solving, loves NYC, and usually the one in movies or books the hero ultimately leaves for the small town heroine. Its happened to her multiple times in fact. Her married sister Libby is more the typical romance heroine- flighty, fun loving, the Marianne to her Eleanor. The two are incredibly close, but lately things have been off so when Libby wants to take a sisters' vacation, Nora agrees and hopes they can reconnect. Libby sets up a bizarre, small town get-away with a list of things for them to do that are classic small town romance book items and Nora isn't sure about she's going to enjoy her vacation. But in comes Charlie, her professional nemesis from New York, also in town for the month. And suddenly she finds herself having more fun than she'd planned.

Nora and Charlie are not your typical main characters or romance heroes, and that's why I liked them so much. They are sharks in the literary world- Nora is a cutthroat literary agent and Charlie is a killer editor- and at first meet are far too similar to even politely pretend to stand one another. But beneath the shark smiles are deep vulnerabilities they refuse to allow anyone to see, and heavy protective needs towards the few they love. These are people who don't want to change, don't want kids, don't want to work less and party more- they like their lives (mostly) as is, despite what society may tell them about being wrong. It takes a lot of courage to be that person, and Emily Henry peels back some incredibly insightful layers about how much courage that really takes. Henry reminds us that even the people who seem to have it the most together on the outside, or the ones we think we know the best, have hidden vulnerabilities, hidden pieces that make them the way they are, and that even the strongest of us need love and support from family and friends to make it through the tough times.

A love story to New York, to the power of books, the power of family, and the power of love- in all its aspects, this was a delightful plot with twists on the typical tropes that will keep you smiling.

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

A Thousand Ships

 A Thousand Ships- Natalie Haynes

HarperCollins

Release Date: January 26, 2021

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: This is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s. They have waited long enough for their turn . . .

This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of them all . . .

In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen.

From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war. 

A woman’s epic, powerfully imbued with new life, A Thousand Ships puts the women, girls and goddesses at the center of the Western world’s great tale ever told.

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For those who have been enjoying the resurgence of retold classics and myths from the women's point of view (The Witch's Heart) especially Madeline Miller's Circe, Natalie Haynes' A Thousand Ships should be an absolute must read. Here is a retelling of the end of the Trojan War where the goddess of epic poetry Calliope has decided she is tired of the bards always telling and retelling the bravery of men.  After all, this war affected women as much as men. 

 And so A Thousand Ships is the story of the women: the ones waiting at home for their men to return, the ones waiting on the beaches of Troy to see whose slaves they will be, as well as flickering back in time to hear the stories of women like Briseis- whose removal from Achilles' tent to Agammemnon's caused Achilles to refuse to fight for most of Homer's Iliad. Penelope's story is told as letters to her husband Odysseus throughout the book and we get her absolutely brilliant personality and wit in her thoughts of the bard's tales of Odysseus' adventures. She is by far my favorite person in the entire book.

I loved how Calliope forces her (unnamed) blind bard to see the tragedy of the war instead of the epic manly greatness he thought he wanted to write about. Calliope points out that the casualties of war don't end on the battlefield and that the deaths or tragedies of the women might hurt more exactly because they rarely get to fight back. Her argument that the women are people and should be memorialized just as much as the men is enhanced by including stories of little known women. Creusa, wife of Aeneas and Laodamia, devoted wife of Greek king Protesilaus have their stories told just the same as the Amazon Penthesilea or Hector's wife Andromache. It's an interesting debate that I think would be divided by gender lines (although maybe here I'm being unfair?): are women who don't literally fight in a war heroes as well? Few of the men we meet in this book are honorable, decent or what I would consider 'heroic' while the women suffer by tending the injured, dealing with famine and plague, fear and captivity, etc. Even Odysseus, who I generally consider the most decent among the Greeks, comes in for his share of questioning by Penelope here.

There is one last question that Haynes asks that has never been asked before (as far as I know): where did the golden apple that started all of this come from? Until I read A Thousand Ships it wasn't a question I had asked, but here a larger and wider story unfolds behind the beauty contest and Paris' judgement that might change the way you look at the entire war and make it truly epic in an entirely different way. 

No owls were harmed (or traded) in the course of this book 

The Witch's Heart

The Witch's Heart- Genevieve Gornichec

Berkley

Release Date: February 9, 2021

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Angrboda’s story begins where most witches' tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.

 
Their union produces three unusual children, each with a secret destiny, who Angrboda is keen to raise at the edge of the world, safely hidden from Odin’s all-seeing eye. But as Angrboda slowly recovers her prophetic powers, she learns that her blissful life—and possibly all of existence—is in danger.
 
With help from the fierce huntress Skadi, with whom she shares a growing bond, Angrboda must choose whether she’ll accept the fate that she’s foreseen for her beloved family...or rise to remake their future. From the most ancient of tales this novel forges a story of love, loss, and hope for the modern age.

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Recent interest in telling the classic myths from the women's point of view and telling the stories of little know Greek women, like Madeline Miller has done in Circe, now enters the world of Norse myths with Genevieve Gornichec's excellent The Witch's Heart.

We all know Loki and his children Hel, the ruler of the Norse underworld, and Fenrir, the wolf. We all know Norse Mythology included a snake who circled the world, though we sometimes forget his name is Jormungand and he is also one of the children Loki had with his giantess wife.  But the myths only mention the name of Loki's giantess wife and the mother of his children once. Genevieve Gornichec imagines what life was like for Angrboda, the Ironwood Witch: wife of Loki, mother of Hel, Fenrir, and Jormungard, and otherwise unremembered in the stories.

Gornichec imagines Angrboda as a woman trying to rebuild a life that has been taken from her over and over by the gods. She may be a powerful witch, but she isn't a warrior and isn't looking for glory or fame- just peace. When she meets Loki she is drawn back into the world of Asgard and the gods, if only on the edge.  She hears tales from Loki and her friend Skadi that anyone reading Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, or any other version of the tales, would be familiar with. Tales of Thor and Odin, Baldur and Freyja, but from a different point of view- the giant's view. The view of the 'monster'. It's a fascinating tale with the twist that perhaps it isn't the events themselves that matter, but why they happen. Anyone vaguely familiar with the stories knows what will happen to Loki and his sons. But why? Angrboda herself has visions about the what, but not the why. Her questions become what can be prevented and what can be changed. What does eternity mean and who are gods who aren't remembered? Are we our actions, or the hidden reasons behind them? These are questions all the main characters struggle with, with varying degrees of success in answering them. 

The Witch's Heart is a beautiful story of deep love and sacrifice and (like the myths themselves) pain and joy.  Gornichec's debut novel is a complex, emotional masterpiece that will have you reading it again and again to discover new nuances every time. 

An excellent story for those interested in twists on well known myths and seeing new women's voices soaring.

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

The Tech

 

The Tech- Mark Ravine

Dawn Hill Publications 

Release Date: February 3, 2020

Rating:

📚

Synopsis: Special Agent Alexandra Cassidy has made a career of disobeying orders, challenging

bigwigs, and asking uncomfortable questions.

What offends her superiors most is that her intolerable antics have earned her one of the best track records in the FBI.
 

It’s too bad, some cases are better left unsolved.

When Cassidy is transferred to the backwaters of Arizona she finds herself leading a crew
with so many black marks on their records, it’s a miracle any of them remain employed.
Thankfully, their first case pretty much solves itself. But as Cassidy and her team continue
throwing bad guys behind bars, a creeping sense of suspicion grows. The cases are easy, a
little too easy, and troubling patterns become impossible to ignore.
Then things take a violent turn, and an elusive figure steps forward to help. But in a
conspiracy big enough to topple kings, every player has an agenda—and misplaced trust will
have devastating consequences.

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Special Agent Alexandra Cassidy starts a new job in Arizona as head of a group of agents considered 'misfits' by other offices.  They instantly start closing cases in 24 hours or less.  Eventually, they start noticing that there are links between each seemingly separate case, and that there may be something much more sinister beneath the surface.

I don't like writing negative reviews.  I like supporting new authors, believe in constructive criticism, and I know my tastes are not universal.  So I'll start by saying that I've seen many positive reviews for The Tech online.  When Dawn Hill Publications asked me to review this book I thought the plot sounded interesting, the positive reviews made me more interested, and I was fully ready to like this book. The basic premise is an interesting twist on traditional FBI/police dramas: what if the tech guy, usually a third layer character at best, was instead really the one solving the cases and pointing the agents/officers in the right direction?  A good idea that could have gone places, and definitely could make an interesting TV series.

But the book didn't deliver on that promise for me.  At a massive 463 pages, The Tech never got off the ground and dragged the way through. None of the characters was more than a flat, one dimensional version of the stock characters we see on any given TV show. The attempt at a romance between the two main characters was neither needed nor any good, bogging down at teenage levels of a crush.  Most of the individual cases came about so fast, and often in questionable ways, that I sometimes had trouble following what were supposed to be complex ideas and ended up being such a tangle that I didn't care about them. I kept hoping the mysterious Cabal of bad guys pulling the strings would turn into something really deep and sinister, but that all got a bit over the top as well by the end.  

I had big problems with Mike, the "tech guy" who is supposed to be our hero. He's created an A.I. program called Aisha (think Tony Stark's Jarvis) and can hack into anything. He doesn't worry about things like warrants or privacy, and clearly needs to have the definition of creepy-stalking a co-worker explained to him (also, lying). Apparently he can do everything, then leads his adopted FBI team to find what he wants them to find with less-than-subtle manipulation. He has no problem planting faked evidence to get bad guys, or destroying evidence. The Tech could have become a fascinating debate about privacy versus public safety in a world where technology is expanding by quantum leaps every day. Do you have the right to expect privacy in a public elevator? In your office? Your apartment? Can the average citizen trust that anyone smart enough to develop this kind of tech is moral enough to use it for the good of the many? Is it ok to set up people with fake evidence when real evidence shows how evil they are? Moral debates never happen though, and any time one might start, Mike waves it away, assuring us that everything is ok.  After all, he's on our side.  Isn't he?

I believe that editing is where The Tech fell apart.  Ravine had a good idea and a really long story that could have been polished into something captivating with help and feedback from an editor.  Stilted text and dialogue could have been relaxed, repetitions could have been removed. Plot could have been streamlined and sharpened and the language Americanized (there's nothing wrong with British English, but if the characters and location are entirely American, the language should be too). Perhaps an editor could have helped encourage character development and some of the moral debates the use of technology in law enforcement calls for today.

Overall, The Tech was a debut novel with a good plot skeleton that needed some guidance and feedback to make it what it could have been a very interesting suspense story. 

I received a copy of this book from Dawn Hill Publications in exchange for an honest review

Piranesi

Piranesi- Susanna Clarke
Bloomsbury Publishing
Release Date: September 15, 2020

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis:  Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

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Most readers picked up this book or are reading this review because they know Susanna Clarke as the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell- an instant classic in the fantasy world.  So let me start this review by telling you two things: 1) this book is NOT like Jonathan Strange and 2) the less someone tries to tell you about Piranesi the more you'll enjoy it.

Piranesi is written in a style that I usually hate (first person, as it is happening, slightly indescribable prose) and at first I wasn't convinced I was going to enjoy it.  But I kept going and was soon pulled into the world of the House.     

Piranesi is a short book, an afternoon's read, especially compared to the tome that is Jonathan Strange.  It's a fantasy world, so full of description that you feel like you are walking down the halls with the main character.  At first you try to figure out if the world is a post-apocalyptic one, a parallel one, or some shadowy mix of worlds you haven't even thought of yet.  The World is the House, and it is a combination of architecture and water.  It is silent, full of statues, and yet through the brilliant writing it is also quite alive.  The character called Piranesi (though he's pretty sure that isn't his real name) has a beautiful approach to the World, life, and everything in it, making him really a joy to read.

Strange and delightful, Piranesi is a mystery that refuses to conform to any rules but its own.  It is the sort of book that haunts you if you put it down before finishing it, makes you continue to think after you've closed the last page, and insists you re-read it to catch some of the nuances you missed the first time.  I predict it will be an instant classic in English literature college classes, and it is certainly a guarantee that readers will be debating hidden meanings and theories for decades to come.

A compelling book that must be experiences rather than described, but should be enjoyed if given the chance.

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

Well Played

Well Played (Well Met #2)- Jen DeLuca

Berkley Publishing

Release Date: September 22, 2020

Rating:

📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Stacey is jolted when her friends Simon and Emily get engaged. She knew she was putting her life on hold when she stayed in Willow Creek to care for her sick mother, but it's been years now, and even though Stacey loves spending her summers pouring drinks and flirting with patrons at the local Renaissance Faire, she wants more out of life. Stacey vows to have her life figured out by the time her friends get hitched at Faire next summer. Maybe she'll even find The One.

When Stacey imagined "The One," it never occurred to her that her summertime Faire fling, Dex MacLean, might fit the bill. While Dex is easy on the eyes onstage with his band The Dueling Kilts, Stacey has never felt an emotional connection with him. So when she receives a tender email from the typically monosyllabic hunk, she's not sure what to make of it.
 
Faire returns to Willow Creek, and Stacey comes face-to-face with the man with whom she’s exchanged hundreds of online messages over the past nine months. To Stacey's shock, it isn't Dex—she's been falling in love with a man she barely knows.

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For those of us who have been impatiently waiting since we read the fantastic Well Met last year, the wait is over. In Well Played we get to know Stacey, Emily's friend/wench mentor from Well Met.  When her friends Simon and Emily get engaged, Stacey's jolted to the realization that she wants a change in her life.  She's lonely, hoping for a new connection, and in a drunken moment, messages Dex MacLean, a Faire hookup who performs in the Dueling Kilts.  The two start emailing, then texting, and becoming closer as time passes.  But when Faire season comes again Stacey learns 'Dex' isn't who she's been falling in love with.  It's his cousin, band manager Daniel MacLean.  How many lies are between them and are they willing to fight for a chance at love and happiness?

Stacey was a great person to get to know, and a perfect example of the masks that people wear in their everyday lives.  She loves Faire and those few weeks of summer when she gets to put on a corset and become Beatrice.  But outside of that, her life is in a rut and she feels hemmed in by both insecurities and what she thinks other people expect from her. She feels like all her friends on social media are moving on and having great, grown-up lives, and she's not only not doing that, she's not sure what she wants anymore out of life. It's the insecurities that most of us face at least a few times in life and was well done. Stacey's also a kind and caring person, maybe a little too forgiving.  When she figures out that 'Dex' is really Daniel, she's willing to forgive him pretty quickly because of how close they've become through their emails.  He knows her better than anyone and she's more than half in love with him already.  Jen DeLuca does a great job showing how close two people can become through only the written word.  Sometimes you find yourself telling the other person things that might take years to say face to face (and as might happen face to face, the communication doesn't go as well as through the written word here)- so Stacey forgiving Daniel is no surprise, and worked for me.  Daniel himself is a little tougher to get, and he never quite does it for me.  He has romantic moments, and we get hints of his insecurities and always feeling second best to Dex.  But he doesn't jump off the page on his own.  He messes up and is willing to walk away instead of trying to fight for his relationship with Stacey.  Stacey finds herself ready to apologize for things that really, Daniel should be apologizing for.  That disappointed me. I wanted Daniel to fight to fix what he needed to fix, instead of assuming one problem means the end of everything and giving up easily. 

Once again, Jen DeLuca's writing is full of sparkling humor, emotional tugs of the heartstrings, and this time we get a pretty cute cat too.  The Faire moments are some of the best, DeLuca's love of all things Renaissance Faire come through perfectly and you wish you could step through the pages and walk down the lanes with the characters.  Her descriptions make you feel the heat, taste the dust, and hear the fiddles.  Some people might not like how much Emily and Simon show up in this book, but personally, I loved it.  I liked Well Met better than Well Played, so having Emily and Simon and the subplot of their wedding throughout this book really helped me. 

While Well Played could be read on its own, it will definitely be better if you read Well Met first- here we get Emily and Simon's wedding, see more of April and Mitch, and overall get to revisit old friends as well as make new ones this Faire season.   

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