March reads

I ended up going back to my folks' house for a few days mid-March for some family time.  Because it was mid-March in Maine, the weather was such (snowing, raining, cold and gloomy) that we spent a lot of time indoors, watching the college basketbasket tournament and reading.  

• The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear.  #16 in the Maisie Dobbs series - which, if I'm honest, diminishes in quality as the series goes on, as though the author is maybe just a little tired of the whole thing - finds our intrepid sleuth in September 1941.  Europe is reeling under Nazi occupation and Maisie finds herself investigating a murder that has implications for Britain's war effort.
• Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey.  When a faculty member dies under suspicious circumstances at an elite magical boarding school, non-magical Ivy Gamble, private investigator, is hired to figure out what happened.  Things are complicated by the fact that Ivy's magical and estranged sister is an educator at the school.
• A Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear.  Maisie Dobbs #17 (which I liked better than 16) is in October 1942, following women pilots and American servicemen and a possible threat to Eleanor Roosevelt, who is visiting England. 
• Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders.  Based on true events, this is the story of the all-Black battalion of American women soldiers, sent to England to sort out the millions of pieces of mail languishing in warehouses and get them to the servicemen who badly need the morale boost.  I had no idea about this piece of WWII history - there's a movie? - so I enjoyed learning about it.  I didn't think this book was terribly well written, however.
• Listen to Me by Tess Gerritsen.  A murder mystery from the Rizzoli and Isles series (#13, but I don't think it's crucial to read them in order - these are popcorn books), wherein Jane Rizzoli (detective) and Maura Isles (medical examiner) investigate the murder of a well-liked nurse, all while Jane's nosy mom Angela starts getting suspicious of new neighbors down the street.
• Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon.  I LOVED this one.  Another WWII novel (there's been a lot lately, I know), this is a historical novel based on the TRUE story of Nancy Wake, an Australian socialite who became a spy and a French resistance leader against Nazi Germany.  She began as a journalist, segued to helping Allied servicemen escape from occupied France over the mountains to Spain.  Then, after the Nazis learned about her, she escaped to England herself - but then went back to France to help arm and organize the Maquis rebels as they fought against their German occupiers.  Amazing woman.
• The Black Ascot by Charles Todd.  This is the 21st murder mystery in the Ian Rutledge series by mother-son duo/pseudonym Charles Todd.  Rutledge is battling his own shell shock from WWI while trying to solve a decade-old murder.
• Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Profession Wiseass by Dave Barry.  This is a memoir, not a straight humor book or funny novel like so many of Barry's books.  As such, there are some poignant moments, especially when dealing with his parents.  But it's still pretty friggin' funny!
• A Cruel Deception by Charles Todd.  This one is from their Bess Crawford series (#11), with heroine/nurse Bess Crawford assigned by a superior to find wayward soldier who has abandoned his duties and salving his mental WWI war wounds with opiates.  I liked this one okay but Bess Crawford is no Maisie Dobbs.
• Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth.  Ooh I liked this one too!  This is an adult fantasy novel by Divergent author Roth, following a group of late 20/early 30-somethings who are plagued by serious PTSD following their defeat of a world-destroying dark entity.  Trouble is, it doesn't look like he has stayed defeated.
• Clytemnestra by Constanza Casati.  As previously noted, there seems to be a trend recently with authors novelizing Greek mythology.  There are mixed results but I quite liked Clytemnestra, bringing to the forefront Helen of Troy's sister/wife of Agamemnon/queen of Mycenae who ruled in her husband's absence and paid him back for the murder/sacrifice of their daughter.

Next month: I finally finish the Maisie Dobbs series!

February reads

Only six books in February.  This is because (I think) we had guests over the Presidents' Day holiday weekend and whereas normally I would have hunkered down and plowed through a bunch of books, I had to be sociable instead.

• The Incandescent by Emily Tesh.  A grown-up, queer-friendly magic school ("dark academia") novel wherein the heroine, Dr. Walden, must protect the 600 school kids from demonic incursions.  Great world-building, interesting characters.
• The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear.  #15 in the Maisie Dobbs series.  Maisie is back on the case when an American correspondent is found murdered in her London flat.  As these later books go on, I find myself less engaged when we have to explore Maisie's home life with newly-adopted daughter.  This installment was (thankfully) not so heavy on the child bit.
• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.  Another science-adventure-in-space from the author of The Martian.  I didn't like this one quite so well, which is weird for someone who DOES like science fiction and fantasy and aliens and all that.  Movie coming out soon starring Ryan Gosling, apparently.
• Dark Sisters by Kristi DeMeester.  Wow - I don't remember this one at all.  Hold on ... [looks it up] oh yeah.  Three centuries of witches and persecution and a curse.  Didn't love it - seemed scattered.
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.  I've read Kristin Hannah books before about women in war - this one is about two French sisters in WWII, one actively in the Resistance against the occupying Nazis, one resisting the best she can.  
• Hemlock and Silver by T Kingfisher.  This one I liked: Anja - a plus-sized, competent spinster (35 years old lol) - wants nothing more than to putter around her laboratory, manufacturing antidotes to common poisons.  She reluctantly gets drawn into royal intrigue when the king hires her to find out what's wrong with his ailing daughter.  Again, good world-building, interesting characters, humor but also tension and violence.  I am a T Kingfisher fan.

January reads

 Ooo I'm on top of it this month!

• The End of the World as We Know It (anthology).  This is a collection of short stories by horror writers, all based in the universe of Stephen King's The Stand.  The Stand is one of my favorite SK novels and it was interesting to see other fans' takes on it.
• Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear.  In this Maisie Dobbs mystery, set in 1938, Maisie is enlisted by the British Secret Service to infiltrate Nazi Germany to affect a Dachau prisoner's release.  The man is a British engineer, very valuable in the war effort.  Maisie poses as his daughter and, while she waits for the Germans follow through on their promise to release him, tracks down a missing woman from her past and also finds herself again in the wake of her husband's death.
• In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear.  Finally returning to England in 1939, as Britain enters WWII, Maisie Dobbs throws herself back into work, investigating the murders of Belgian refugees from the Great War.  
• To Die But Once by Jacqueline Winspear.  This is book #14 in the series - which ends at eighteen and then what will I do? - and Maisie and her team are back at it, investigating the murder of a young apprentice who was involved with a wartime government contract.  Organized crime looms large but Maisie is more than up for it.
• Bittershore by V.V. James.  Ah ... apparently this is a sequel to Sanctuary, which I haven't read.  Didn't really matter, in this fantasy/thriller focused on mother and daughter witches, Sarah and Harper Fenn, regrouping after being run out of town after a literal witch hunt.  Meh.  I guess there's an AMC show based on these books?
• The Island of Last Things by Emma Sloley.  Set on (in?) Alcatraz in the middle of a planet-altering apocalypse, this novel follows two zookeepers in the last zoo on Earth.  Dark but surprisingly hopeful.
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.  One of my BFFs from college said that he did a book report in ninth grade on this one, but this is the first time I've read it.  Being true crime (indeed, basically inventing the genre), it's not my usual read but boy, was it fascinating.  Meticulously researched via indefatigable interviews, this book switches POVs between the decent, hardworking Clutter family and the two men who brutally murdered them.

And so now I'm going to have to try another classic true crime: I've got Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil on my list now.

December reads

I must have been busy doing holiday stuff in December because I only read three books.  That's the fewest in a month all year; the next fewest was five in September.

• The Poppy War by RF Kuang.  The first in a trilogy of "grimdark" military fantasy, this novel follows Rin, a gifted orphan who enters an elite military academy.  She discovers that she has supernatural powers and this catapults her into the war that grips her country.  Didn't love it.
• A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear.  Another Maisie Dobbs, this one jumps forwards a few years to find a struggling Maisie trying to lose herself, first in India and then, on her way home to England, in Gibraltar.  Thinking to just solve the murder of a local photographer, she finds herself drawn back towards the machinations of the British secret service as WWII looms ever nearer.
• How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristin Perrin.  The second novel in the Castle Knoll murder mystery series, Annie spends the inheritance she received in the first book by investigating a pair of murders.  These are enjoyable but lightweight mysteries, not quite to the level of Maisie Dobbs or Inspector Gamache.

So I ended up reading 106 books this past year.  I didn't have a goal, just wanted to track how many books I would read in 2025.  I have a goal for 2026 though: more.