April reads

Late to post and not that many books read in April.  It happens.

• The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear.  Finally finished the Maisie Dobbs series and I must say that, for me, it went out on sour note - I thought the final book in the series was the weakest by far.  I haven't enjoyed the sections of the most recent volumes that have Maisie focused more on her family (I don't care a fig about her daughter Anna).  Family took up a big chunk of this last book, plus an inordinate amount of time was spent with the characters reminiscing about events of the prior seventeen books.  I already read them - I don't need you to rehash them.  I guess it was time for the series to end.  I did, however, love many of the previous installments and do recommend the series.
• Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-Il Kim.  Wherein three strangers unite to save their home.  Epic fantasy with journeys, dragons, the corpses of dead sorcerors and two of the three protagonists are women.
• Atlas of Unknowable Things by McCormick Templeman.  My notes say that I really liked this one but, honestly, I can't remember it at all.  Set in a gothic college campus high in the Rocky Mountains, a historian arrives to study its manuscripts whilst secretly searching for an artifact.
• Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward - I liked this one too, and funnily enough, it is also set high in the Rocky Mountains.  This time, abused siblings Riley and Oliver run away from home, searching for Nowhere, a hidden sanctuary for children like them, built on the ruins of a former movie star's ranch.  Or is it a cult?  Or worse?  This one is pretty dark and pretty good.
• Rosemary & Rue by Seanan McGuire.  I was looking for a different Seanan McGuire book and picked this one up instead, the first of the October Daye urban fantasy series.  October "Toby" Daye is half human, half faerie, and all caught up in the fae world, despite her best efforts.  A knight for Faerie, she's a bit of a P.I. and has to solve the murder of a fae countess before a curse ends her own life.  Didn't love it but enjoyed it enough to see what the next book has to offer.