Lori's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:50:18 -0700 60 Lori's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)]]> 924680 342 Anne Rice 0345477693 Lori 4 3.82 1976 Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1)
author: Anne Rice
name: Lori
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1976
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/04/29
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]]> The Warm Hands of Ghosts 154462576 New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale

January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, she receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. Soon after arriving, she hears whispers about haunted trenches, and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something—or someone—else?

November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped in an overturned pillbox with a wounded enemy soldier, a German by the name of Hans Winter. Against all odds, the two men form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. Unable to bear the thought of returning to the killing fields, especially on opposite sides, they take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.

As shells rain down on Flanders, and ghosts move among those yet living, Laura’s and Freddie’s deepest traumas are reawakened. Now they must decide whether their world is worth salvaging—or better left behind entirely.]]> 325 Katherine Arden 0593128257 Lori 3 3.96 2024 The Warm Hands of Ghosts
author: Katherine Arden
name: Lori
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 Lori 2 3.87 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Lori
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tomb of Dragons (The Cemeteries of Amalo, #3)]]> 62064986
While his title may be gone, his duties are not. Celehar contends with a municipal cemetery with fifty years of secrets, the damage of a revethavar he’s terrified to remember, and a group of miners who are more than willing to trade Celehar’s life for a chance at what they feel they’re owed.

Celehar does not have to face these impossible tasks alone. Joining him are his mentee Velhiro Tomasaran, still finding her footing with the investigative nature of their job; Iäna Pel-Thenhior, his beloved opera director friend and avid supporter; and the valiant guard captain Hanu Olgarezh.

Amidst the backdrop of a murder and a brewing political uprising, Celehar must seek justice for those who cannot find it themselves under a tense political system. The repercussions of his quest are never as simple they seem, and Celehar’s own life and happiness hang in the balance.]]> Katherine Addison Lori 3 4.32 2025 The Tomb of Dragons (The Cemeteries of Amalo, #3)
author: Katherine Addison
name: Lori
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> Three Days in June 213243949 A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life,ÌýThree Days in JuneÌýis a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers

]]> 165 Anne Tyler 0593803485 Lori 4 3.61 2025 Three Days in June
author: Anne Tyler
name: Lori
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> Shroud 230237860 On a planet shrouded in darkness, a stranded crew must fight for survival. But, the darkness may have plans of its own in this wildly original story from Adrian Tchaikovsky, Hugo and Arthur C. Clarke Award–winning author of Children of Time.

They looked into the darkness and the darkness looked back . . .

New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists � and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is pitch black, but alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is anathema to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances should a human end up on Shroud’s inhospitable surface. Except a catastrophic accident sees Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne doing just that. Forced to stage an emergency landing, in a small, barely adequate vehicle, they are unable to contact their ship and are running out of time. What follows is a gruelling journey across land, sea and air. During this time, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s dominant species. It also begins to understand them . . .

Ìý±Õ±Õ> 448 Adrian Tchaikovsky Lori 0 to-read 3.57 2025 Shroud
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Lori
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> Shadow Ticket 230910361
Thomas Pynchon is the author of V.; The Crying of Lot 49; Gravity’s Rainbow; Slow Learner, a collection of short stories; Vineland; Mason & Dixon; Against the Day; and, most recently, Inherent Vice. He received the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow in 1974.]]> 384 Thomas Pynchon 1594206104 Lori 0 to-read 5.00 2025 Shadow Ticket
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Lori
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
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]]> Dream Count 219521090 A publishing event ten years in the making�a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists�the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until � betrayed and brokenhearted � she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America � but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]> 416 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 059380273X Lori 5 3.93 2025 Dream Count
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Lori
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/04/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory]]> 205212830 When lies become truths and
two kingdoms� head to a bloody war,
a man is exiled for his conscience

Refusing the queen’s order to gas a crowd of protesters, Minister Shea Ashcroft is banished to the border to oversee construction of the biggest defensive tower in history. However, the use of advanced technology taken from refugees makes the tower volatile and dangerous, becoming a threat to local interests. Shea has no choice but to fight the local hierarchy to ensure the construction succeeds—and to reclaim his own life.

Surviving an assassination attempt, Shea confronts his inner demons, encounters an ancient legend, and discovers a portal to a dead world—all the while struggling to stay true to his own principles and maintain his sanity. Fighting memories and hallucinations, he starts to question everything...

Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory is a thought-provoking meditation on the fragility of the human condition, our beliefs, the manipulation of propaganda for political gains, and our ability to distinguish the real from the unreal and willingness to accept convenient “truths.� The novel is a compelling exploration of memory, its fragile nature, and its profound impact on our perception of identity, relationships, and facts themselves.

A unique blend of science fiction, fantasy and noir, with zeitgeist and prophetic qualities (the original novella anticipated the Russo-Ukrainian War), this is a must for fans of China Miéville’s Bas-Lag series, Ted Chiang’s Tower of Babylon, and Robert Silverberg’s Tower of Glass.]]> 300 Yaroslav Barsukov 1647101360 Lori 0 to-read 4.07 2024 Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory
author: Yaroslav Barsukov
name: Lori
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> Shroud 210384823 An utterly gripping story of alien encounter and survival from Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Children of Time.

They looked into the darkness and the darkness looked back . . .

New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists � and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is pitch black, but alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is anathema to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances should a human end up on Shroud’s inhospitable surface. Except a catastrophic accident sees Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne doing just that. Forced to stage an emergency landing, in a small, barely adequate vehicle, they are unable to contact their ship and are running out of time. What follows is a gruelling journey across land, sea and air. During this time, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s dominant species. It also begins to understand them . . .

If they escape Shroud, they’ll face a crew only interested in profiteering from this extraordinary world. They’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all.]]> 436 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1035013797 Lori 0 to-read 4.16 2025 Shroud
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Lori
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> Parallel Lines 221133949 The story of a group of wildly different people whose fates are improbably yet inextricably linked, the new novel from the bestselling and prize-winning author.



* A Sunday Times, Guardian and Financial Times ‘Book to Look Out For� 2025 *




It is summer, and Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown that has left him with a fragile hold on reality and a persistent hunger to connect with the mother who abandoned him as a child.

His therapist, Martin, is also facing challenges, including his adopted daughter Olivia’s tenuous relationship with her biological mother � a predicament that makes Sebastian’s struggle feel uncannily close to her own. Olivia is producing a radio series on natural disasters, which itself seems to be running parallel to the events unfolding in her personal life, as her best friend Lucy faces a grave diagnosis and her husband, Francis, pursues his mission of rewilding the world.

Over the course of the next year their fates collide in outrageous and poignant ways, as each of their destinies is revealed in a marvellous new light.

Written with Edward St Aubyn’s trademark wit and inimitable style, Parallel Lines is a novel about connection, love and the cascading consequences of our choices. It is a vibrant, moving celebration of the life of the spirit and the life of the mind from one of our most irresistible storytellers.]]> 352 Edward St. Aubyn 1787335593 Lori 0 to-read 3.91 2025 Parallel Lines
author: Edward St. Aubyn
name: Lori
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> The Incandescent 216488999 A Deadly Education meets Rivers of London in this captivating contemporary fantasy from Sunday Times bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

Dr. Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings and securing the school’s boundaries from demonic incursions.

Walden is good at her job � no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. But it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from, is herself . . .]]> 368 Emily Tesh 0356525643 Lori 0 to-read 4.22 2025 The Incandescent
author: Emily Tesh
name: Lori
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> The Poppy Fields 218549887
What if there were a cure for the broken-hearted?

Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal.

Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they will finally be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects.

On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog: Ava, a book illustrator; Ray, a fireman; Sasha, an occupational therapist; Sky, a free spirit; and a friendly pup named PJ. As they attempt to make their way from the Midwest all the way to the Poppy Fields—where they hope to find Ellis, its brilliant, enigmatic founder—each of their past secrets and mysterious motivations threaten to derail their voyage.

A high-concept speculative novel about heartache, hope, and human resilience, The Poppy Fields explores the path of grief and healing, a journey at once profoundly universal and unique to every person, posing the questions: How do we heal in the wake of great loss? And how far are we willing to go in order to be healed?]]> Nikki Erlick 0063349353 Lori 0 to-read 4.29 2025 The Poppy Fields
author: Nikki Erlick
name: Lori
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> The Strange Case of Jane O. 213870076
In the first year after her child is born, Jane suffers a series of strange episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations, and an inexplicable sense of dread. As her psychiatrist struggles to solve the mystery of what is happening to Jane’s mind, she suddenly goes missing. A day later she is found unconscious in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, in the midst of what seems to be an episode of dissociative fugue; when she comes to, she has no memory of what has happened to her.

Are Jane’s strange experiences related to the overwhelm of single motherhood, or are they the manifestation of a long-buried trauma from her past? Why is she having visions of a young man who died twenty years ago, who warns her of a disaster ahead? Jane’s symptoms lead her psychiatrist ever-deeper into the furthest reaches of her mind, and cause him to question everything he thought he knew about so-called reality—including events in his own life.

Karen Thompson Walker’s profound and beautifully written novel is a speculative mystery about memory, identity, and fate, a mesmerizing story about the bonds of love between a mother and child, a man and a woman, and those who we’ve lost but may still be alive among us.]]> 288 Karen Thompson Walker 1984853945 Lori 4 3.91 2025 The Strange Case of Jane O.
author: Karen Thompson Walker
name: Lori
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2025
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> Time of the Child 201608156
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love � and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Set over the course of one December in the same village as Williams' beloved This Is Happiness, Time of the Child is a tender return to Faha for readers who know its charms, and a heartwarming welcome to new readers entering for the very first time.]]> 304 Niall Williams 1639734201 Lori 4 4.16 2024 Time of the Child
author: Niall Williams
name: Lori
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> Broken Country 214151202 “The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.�

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.]]> 320 Clare Leslie Hall 166807818X Lori 3 4.41 2025 Broken Country
author: Clare Leslie Hall
name: Lori
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2025
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/03/18
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]]> Exiles (Aaron Falk, #3) 60784359
A year on, Kim Gillespie’s absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family.

Joining the celebrations is federal investigator Aaron Falk. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems.

Between Falk’s closest friend, a missing mother, and a woman he’s drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge.

An outstanding novel, a brilliant mystery and a heart-pounding read from the author of The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and The Survivors.]]> 356 Jane Harper 1250235359 Lori 4 3.96 2022 Exiles (Aaron Falk, #3)
author: Jane Harper
name: Lori
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Lori 4 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Lori
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Dragon Haven (Rain Wilds Chronicles #2)]]> 8544772 509 Robin Hobb 0061931551 Lori 3 4.15 2010 Dragon Haven (Rain Wilds Chronicles #2)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Lori
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/02/27
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]]> All the Colors of the Dark 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]> 608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Lori 5 4.23 2024 All the Colors of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Lori
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/02/25
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I need to read more books by him. So many feels. The characters are so real and flawed. The plot drives you on.
]]> Luminous 214151232 A highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea that tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

In a reunified Korea of the future, robots have been integrated into society as surrogates, servants, children, and even lovers. Though boundaries between bionic and organic frequently blur, these robots are decidedly second-class citizens. Jun and Morgan, two siblings estranged for many years, are haunted by the memory of their lost brother, Yoyo, who was warm, sensitive, and very nearly human.

Jun, a war veteran turned detective of the lowly Robot Crimes Unit in Seoul, becomes consumed by an investigation that reconnects him with his sister Morgan, now a prominent robot designer working for a top firm, who is, embarrassingly, dating one of her creations in secret.

On the other side of Seoul in a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scraps looking for robotic parts that might support her failing body. When she discovers a robot boy named Yoyo among the piles of trash, an unlikely bond is formed since Yoyo is so lifelike, he’s unlike anything she’s seen before.

While Morgan prepares to launch the most advanced robot-boy of her career, Jun’s investigation sparks a journey through the underbelly of Seoul, unearthing deeper mysteries about the history of their country and their family. The three siblings must find their way back to each other to reckon with their pasts and the future ahead of them in this poignant and remarkable exploration of what it really means to be human.]]> 391 Silvia Park 1668021668 Lori 0 to-read 3.88 2025 Luminous
author: Silvia Park
name: Lori
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/23
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]]> The Friend 40164365
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.

While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.

Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.]]> 212 Sigrid Nunez 0735219451 Lori 5 3.72 2018 The Friend
author: Sigrid Nunez
name: Lori
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/02/11
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4.5 rounded up. For such a fry cerebral book it sure gave me the feels.
]]> <![CDATA[The Chessmen (Lewis Trilogy, #3)]]> 15832513 ]]> 383 Peter May 0857382241 Lori 4 4.05 2012 The Chessmen (Lewis Trilogy, #3)
author: Peter May
name: Lori
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lewis Man (Lewis Trilogy, #2)]]> 12782865 373 Peter May 0857382209 Lori 4 4.19 2011 The Lewis Man (Lewis Trilogy, #2)
author: Peter May
name: Lori
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Blackhouse (Lewis Trilogy, #1)]]> 10305247
When a brutal murder on the island bears the hallmarks of a similar slaying in Edinburgh, police detective Fin Macleod is dispatched north to investigate. But since he himself was raised on Lewis, the investigation also represents a journey home and into his past.

Each year the island's men perform the hunting of the gugas, a savage custom no longer necessary for survival, but which they cling to even more fiercely in the face of the demands of modern morality. For Fin the hunt recalls a horrific tragedy, which after all this time may have begun to demand another sacrifice.

The Blackhouse is a crime novel of rare power and vision. Peter May has crafted a page-turning murder mystery that explores the darkness in our souls, and just how difficult it is to escape the past.]]> 386 Peter May 1849163847 Lori 4 4.07 2009 The Blackhouse (Lewis Trilogy, #1)
author: Peter May
name: Lori
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> Babylonia 210204151
When kings fall, queens rise.

Nothing about Semiramis's upbringing could have foretold her legacy or the power she would come to wield. A female ruler, once an orphan raised on the outskirts of an empire - certainly no one in Ancient Assyria would bend to her command willingly. Semiramis was a woman who knew if she wanted power, she would have to claim it.

There are whispers of her fame in Mesopotamian myth- Semiramis was a queen, an ambitious warrior, a commander whose reputation reaches the majestic proportions of Alexander the Great. Historical record, on the other hand, falls eerily quiet.

In her second novel, Costanza Casati brilliantly weaves myth and ancient history together to give Semiramis a voice, charting her captivating ascent to a throne no one promised her. The world Casati expertly builds is rich with dazzling detail and will transport her readers to the heat of the Assyrian Empire and a world long gone.]]> 448 Costanza Casati 1464228213 Lori 4 4.07 2024 Babylonia
author: Costanza Casati
name: Lori
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> I, Claudius/Claudius the God 18769 Clau-Clau-Claudius the stammerer was known as a buffoon and a pitiful fool.

He made it his business to watch from the sidelines and record the antics, funny, violent and lustful, of the imperial household as its members vied with each other for power. Then he found himself Emperor.

From the great days of Augustus and the cruelties of Tiberius to the deified insanity of Caligula, he records a story breathtaking in its murderousness, greed and folly. Throughout the swings of fortune, his own disastrous love affair with the depraved Messalina and surprisingly successful reign, his voice sometimes puzzled, sometimes rueful, always sane, speaks to us across the centuries in two great, classic historical novels.]]> 839 Robert Graves 0140093141 Lori 4 4.45 1934 I, Claudius/Claudius the God
author: Robert Graves
name: Lori
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1934
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> Playground 205478762 The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.]]> 381 Richard Powers 1324086033 Lori 2 4.16 2024 Playground
author: Richard Powers
name: Lori
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> You Dreamed of Empires 127938747 From a visionary Mexican author, a hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story that reimagines the fall of Tenochtitlan.

One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered the city of Tenochtitlan � today's Mexico City. Later that day, he would meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.

Cortés was accompanied by his nine captains, his troops, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn, former slave, and Malinalli, a strategic, former princess. Greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely princess Atotoxli, sister and wife of Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance to the city. As they await their meeting with Moctezuma � who is at a political, spiritual, and physical crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get himself through the day and in quest for any kind of answer from the gods � the Spanish are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the city, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.

You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenochtitlan at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Alvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counter-attack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.]]> 220 Ãlvaro Enrigue 059354479X Lori 4 3.75 2022 You Dreamed of Empires
author: Ãlvaro Enrigue
name: Lori
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> Civilizations 51155778 1492Ìý : Colomb ne découvre pas l’Amérique.
1531Ìý : les Incas envahissent l’Europe.
Ìý
À quelles conditions ce qui a été aurait-il pu ne pas êtreÌý ?
Il a manqué trois choses aux Indiens pour résister aux conquistadors.Ìý Donnez-leurÌý le cheval, le fer, les anticorps, et toute l’histoire du monde est à refaire.
Ìý
Civilizations est le roman de cette hypothèse : Atahualpa débarque dans l’Europe de Charles Quint. Pour y trouver quoiÌý ?
L’Inquisition espagnole, la Réforme de Luther, le capitalisme naissant. Le prodige de l’imprimerie, et ses feuilles qui parlent. Des monarchies exténuées par leurs guerres sans fin, sous la menace constante des Turcs. Une mer infestée de pirates. Un continent déchiré par les querelles religieuses et dynastiques.
Mais surtout, des populations brimées, affamées, au bord du soulèvement, juifs de Tolède, maures de Grenade, paysans allemandsÌý : des alliés.
De Cuzco à Aix-la-Chapelle, et jusqu’� la bataille de Lépante, voici le récit de la mondialisation renversée, telle qu’au fond, il s’en fallut d’un rien pour qu’elle l’emporte, et devienne réalité.
Ìý

Ìý±Õ±Õ> 384 Laurent Binet 2246813107 Lori 0 3.69 2019 Civilizations
author: Laurent Binet
name: Lori
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> Blood Over Bright Haven 57915993 Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.

An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.

What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power.

Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?

A standalone dark academia brimming with mystery, tragedy, and the damning echoes of the past. For fans of Leigh Bardugo, V. E. Schwab, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

(Content warnings for gore, sexual assault, and suicidal ideation)]]> 527 M.L. Wang Lori 2 a massively highly rated book. Loved Sword of Kaigen. I found this so predictable , character types stirring no emotional connection, fairly ya in story, unremarkable writing. Still I did read it for many chapters before dnf.]]> 4.44 2023 Blood Over Bright Haven
author: M.L. Wang
name: Lori
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
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review:
Ha well I’ve done it again, didn’t like
a massively highly rated book. Loved Sword of Kaigen. I found this so predictable , character types stirring no emotional connection, fairly ya in story, unremarkable writing. Still I did read it for many chapters before dnf.
]]> Sargassa (Ex Romana, #1) 205015106 An unlikely group of rebels are ready to burn down the empire in the first book in a new speculative trilogy that explores gender, sexuality, and oppression within an empire teetering on the brink of rebellion

Told from multiple POVs: a young heiress, an undercover spy, a bastard brother and a fugitive who has history with all three, Sargassa equal parts political intrigue, queer romance, and revolution

Selah Kleios is twenty-two years old and suddenly one of the most important women in the empires. The role of Imperial Historian is her birthright, something she’s been preparing for since birth—but she was supposed to have more time to learn the role from her father, the previous Historian. In the wake of her father’s sudden and shocking assassination, Selah finds herself custodian of more than just the Imperial Archives, the towering central library that safeguards all collective knowledge of the Roman Imperium and its client empires. There’s also the question of the two puzzling classified items her father left in her care—an ancient atlas filled with landscapes that don’t exist, and a carved piece of stone that seems to do nothing at all.

Soon, though, it becomes clear that the Iveroa Stone is more than just a slab of rock. With the reappearance of an old lost love who’s been blackmailed into stealing it for an unknown entity, Selah finds herself in a race to uncover the mysteries the Stone holds. But she isn’t the only one with an interest in it—she’ll have to contend with the deputy chief of police, an undercover spy, and her own beloved half brother along the way. What begins as an act of atonement and devotion ultimately pulls her into the crosshairs of deep state conspiracy, the stirrings of an underground independence movement, and questions that threaten to shake the foundational legitimacy of Roma Sargassa’s past, present, and future.]]> 416 Sophie Burnham 0756419360 Lori 4 4.26 2024 Sargassa (Ex Romana, #1)
author: Sophie Burnham
name: Lori
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #19)]]> 203578881 The nineteenth mystery in the #1 New York Times bestselling Armand Gamache series

Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.

That's only the first in a sequence of strange events that begin The Grey Wolf, the nineteenth novel in Louise Penny's #1 New York Times bestselling series. A missing coat, an intruder alarm, a note for Gamache reading "This might interest you," a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list—and then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching.

Armand Gamache; Jean-Guy Beauvoir, his son-in-law and second in command; and Inspector Isabelle Lacoste can only trust each other, as old friends begin to act like enemies, and long-time enemies appear to be friends. Determined to track down the threat before it becomes a reality, their pursuit takes them across Québec and across borders. Their hunt grows increasingly desperate, even frantic, as the enormity of the creature they’re chasing becomes clear. If they fail, the devastating consequences would reach into the largest of cities and the smallest of villages.]]> 421 Louise Penny 1250328136 Lori 2 3.95 2024 The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #19)
author: Louise Penny
name: Lori
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> Polostan (Bomb Light, #1) 199793426 Polostan follows the early life of the enigmatic Dawn Rae Bjornberg. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn is raised in Leningrad after the Russian Revolution by her Russian father, a party line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora. She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gunrunning and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C., during the depths of the Great Depression. When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of U.S. authorities, Dawn returns to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB.]]> 303 Neal Stephenson 0062334492 Lori 4 3.70 2024 Polostan (Bomb Light, #1)
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Lori
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)]]> 213618143 The brilliant detective Ana Dolabra may have finally met her match in the gripping sequel to The Tainted Cup—from the bestselling author of The Founders Trilogy.

In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, an impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—abducted from his quarters while the door and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard.

To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial investigator, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.

Before long, Ana’s discovered that they’re not investigating a disappearance, but a murder—and that the killing was just the first chess move by an adversary who seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and who can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.

Worse still, the killer seems to be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud. Here, the Empire's greatest minds dissect fallen Titans to harness the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the destruction would be terrible indeed—and the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.

Din has seen Ana solve impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and Ana seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, he fears that his superior has finally met an enemy she can’t defeat.]]> 465 Robert Jackson Bennett 0593723821 Lori 0 to-read 4.55 2025 A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Lori
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/25
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]]> My Friends 217163697 #1ÌýNew York TimesÌýbestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.]]> 448 Fredrik Backman 1982112824 Lori 0 to-read 4.58 2025 My Friends
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Lori
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The City and Its Uncertain Walls]]> 209192695 From the bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.]]> 449 Haruki Murakami 0593801970 Lori 4 3.72 2023 The City and Its Uncertain Walls
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Lori
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> Atmosphere 220817728 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easy-going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158717 Lori 0 to-read 4.45 2025 Atmosphere
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Lori
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> <![CDATA[A Tide of Black Steel (Age of Wrath, #1)]]> 204593499 From the international bestselling author Anthony Ryan comes the spectacular first novel in a new epic new fantasy trilogy inspired by Norse mythology. A new age has dawned. An age of blood and steel. An age of wrath. The land of Ascarlia, a fabled realm of bloodied steel and epic sagas, has been ruled by the Sister Queens for centuries. No one has dared question their rule. Until now.

Whispers speak of longships of mysterious tattooed warriors, sailing under the banners of a murderous cult of oath-breakers long thought extinct. A tide of black steel that threatens to vanquish all in its path.

Thera of the Blackspear, favoured servant of the Sister Queens, is ordered to uncover the truth. As Thera sails north, her reviled brother, Felnir, sets out on his own adventure. He hopes to find the Vault of the Altvar � the treasure room of the gods � and win the Sister Queens� favour at his sister’s expense.

Both siblings � along with a brilliant young scribe and a prisoner with a terrifying, primal power � will play a part in the coming storm.

The Age of Wrath has begun.]]> 560 Anthony Ryan 0316574589 Lori 4 4.11 2024 A Tide of Black Steel (Age of Wrath, #1)
author: Anthony Ryan
name: Lori
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> The Mighty Red 199793431
Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his.

Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He’s determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker.

Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future, her daughter’s and her own.

Human time, deep time, Red River time, the half-life of herbicides and pesticides, and the elegance of time represented in fracking core samples from unimaginable depths, is set against the speed of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the sudden economic meltdown of 2008-2009. How much does a dress cost? A used car? A package of cinnamon rolls? Can you see the shape of your soul in the everchanging clouds? Your personal salvation in the giant expanse of sky? These are the questions the people of the Red River Valley of the North wrestle with every day.

The Mighty Red is a novel of tender humor, disturbance, and hallucinatory mourning. It is about on-the-job pains and immeasurable satisfactions, a turbulent landscape, and eating the native weeds growing in your backyard. It is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. It is about a starkly beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces upend them. As with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor.

A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.]]> 384 Louise Erdrich 0063277050 Lori 4 3.78 2024 The Mighty Red
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Lori
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Paladin by C.J. Cherryh (2002-01-01)]]> 144330531 0 unknown author Lori 5 5.00 The Paladin by C.J. Cherryh (2002-01-01)
author: unknown author
name: Lori
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1)]]> 61145554
A girl has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.

The world has never even noticed them. That's about to change.

Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty, and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned.]]> 571 Mark Lawrence Lori 2 to-read 4.19 2023 The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1)
author: Mark Lawrence
name: Lori
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: to-read
review:
I was too scattered to read this. Very detailed and couldnt visualize lise it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Borders of Infinity (Vorkosigan Saga, #5.3)]]> 5073782 [Publisher's Note: The Borders of Infinity was originally published as a stand-alone novella in the anthology Free Lancers in September 1987. It was then included in the novel Borders of Infinity (October 1989). For the novel, Ms. Bujold added a short "framing story" that tied the three novellas together by setting up each as a flashback that Miles experiences while recovering from bone-replacement surgery. Fictionwise is publishing these novellas separately, but we decided to leave in Ms. Bujold's short framing story for those who may also wish to read the other two novellas (he Mountains of Mourning and Labyrinth).]
Locus Poll Award Nominee]]> 84 Lois McMaster Bujold Lori 4 4.25 1987 The Borders of Infinity (Vorkosigan Saga, #5.3)
author: Lois McMaster Bujold
name: Lori
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1987
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/11/21
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Mirror (The Bone Season, #5)]]> 24526778
As she makes her way back to the revolution, her journey takes her to Venice, where she learns a dangerous secret � one that could change the face of the war between humans and immortals. Before she can return to London, she must help the Domino Programme unravel the sinister Operation Ventriloquist.

And it soon becomes clear that the one person who could recover her memories � Arcturus Mesarthim � might also hold the key to saving Italy.

Lyrical and action-packed, The Dark Mirror drives the Bone Season series forward, showing Samantha Shannon at the height of her powers.]]> 576 Samantha Shannon 140887945X Lori 0 to-read 4.63 2025 The Dark Mirror (The Bone Season, #5)
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Lori
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Bright Sword 201750794
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.]]> 673 Lev Grossman 0735224048 Lori 0 never-mind 3.94 2024 The Bright Sword
author: Lev Grossman
name: Lori
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: never-mind
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fury of the Gods (The Bloodsworn Saga, #3)]]> 61755703 The Fury of the Gods is the earth-shattering final book in John Gwynne's bestselling Norse-inspired epic fantasy series, packed with myth, magic and bloody vengeance

THE FINAL BATTLE FOR THE FATE OF VIGRIÃ APPROACHES

Varg has overcome the trials of his past and become an accepted member of the Bloodsworn, but now he and his newfound comrades face their biggest challenge yet: slaying a dragon.

Elvar is struggling to consolidate her power in Snakavik, where she faces threats from within and without. As she fights to assert her authority in readiness for the coming conflict, she faces a surely insurmountable task: reining in the ferocity of a wolf god.

As Biorr and his warband make their way north, eager for blood, Gudvarr pursues a mission of his own, hoping to win Lik-Rifa's favour and further his own ambitions.

All paths lead to Snakavik, where the lines are being drawn for the final battle - a titanic clash that will shake the foundations of the world, and bear witness to the true fury of the gods.]]> 528 John Gwynne 0356514293 Lori 2
All action with no character. Im just not that interested in battles that describe the fight choreography with no internal or emotional reactions. ]]> 4.46 2024 The Fury of the Gods (The Bloodsworn Saga, #3)
author: John Gwynne
name: Lori
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves:
review:
Dnf

All action with no character. Im just not that interested in battles that describe the fight choreography with no internal or emotional reactions.
]]> When We Were Real 214565598 From multiple award-winning author Daryl Gregory comes a madcap adventure following two friends on a cross-country bus tour through the mind-boggling glitches in their simulated world as they grapple with love, family, secrets, and the very nature of reality in a simulation.

JP and Dulin have been the best of friends for decades. When JP finds out his cancer has aggressively returned, Dulin decides it’s the perfect time for one last a week-long bus tour of North America’s Impossibles, the physics-defying glitches and geographic miracles that started cropping up seven years earlier—right after the Announcement that revealed our world to be merely a digital simulacrum. The outing, courtesy of Canterbury Trails Tours, promises the trip of a (not completely real) lifetime in a (not completely deluxe) coach.

Their fellow passengers are 21st-century pilgrims, each of them on the tour for their own reasons. There’s a nun hunting for an absent God, a pregnant influencer determined to make her child too famous to be deleted, a crew of horny octogenarians living each day like it’s their last, and a professor on the run from leather-clad sociopaths who take The Matrix as scripture. Each stop on this trip is stranger than the last—a Tunnel outside of time, a zero gravity Geyser, the compound of motivational-speaking avatar—with everyone barreling toward the tour’s iconic final stop Ghost City, where unbeknownst to our travelers the answer to who is running the simulation may await.

When We Were Real is a tour-de-force and exploration of what really matters, even in an artificial world.]]> 464 Daryl Gregory 1668060043 Lori 0 to-read 4.16 2025 When We Were Real
author: Daryl Gregory
name: Lori
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Children of Memory (Children of Time, #3)]]> 60850767
Earth failed. In a desperate bid to escape, the spaceship Enkidu and its captain, Heorest Holt, carried its precious human cargo to a potential new paradise. Generations later, this fragile colony has managed to survive, eking out a hardy existence. Yet life is tough, and much technological knowledge has been lost.

Then strangers appear. They possess unparalleled knowledge and thrilling technology � and they've arrived from another world to help humanity’s colonies. But not all is as it seems, and the price of the strangers' help may be the colony itself.

Children of Memory by Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky is a far-reaching space opera spanning generations, species and galaxies.]]> 486 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1529087201 Lori 4 3.97 2022 Children of Memory (Children of Time, #3)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Lori
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Borne (Borne, #1) 31451186
At first, Borne looks like nothing at all—just a green lump that might be a Company discard. The Company, although severely damaged, is rumoured to still make creatures and send them to distant places that have not yet suffered Collapse.

Borne somehow reminds Rachel of the island nation of her birth, now long lost to rising seas. She feels an attachment she resents; attachments are traps, and in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet when she takes Borne to her subterranean sanctuary, the Balcony Cliffs, Rachel convinces her lover, Wick, not to render Borne down to raw genetic material for the drugs he sells—she cannot break that bond.

Wick is a special kind of supplier, because the drug dealers in the city don’t sell the usual things. They sell tiny creatures that can be swallowed or stuck in the ear, and that release powerful memories of other people’s happier times or pull out forgotten memories from the user’s own mind—or just produce beautiful visions that provide escape from the barren, craterous landscapes of the city.

Against his better judgment, out of affection for Rachel or perhaps some other impulse, Wick respects her decision. Rachel, meanwhile, despite her loyalty to Wick, knows he has kept secrets from her. Searching his apartment, she finds a burnt, unreadable journal titled “Mord,� a cryptic reference to the Magician (a rival drug dealer) and evidence that Wick has planned the layout of the Balcony Cliffs to match the blueprint of the Company building. What is he hiding? Why won’t he tell her about what happened when he worked for the Company?]]> 323 Jeff VanderMeer 0374115249 Lori 4 3.93 2017 Borne (Borne, #1)
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Lori
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Sixth Watch (Night Watch, #6) 28197429 The final chapter in Sergei Lukyanenko's internationally bestselling Night Watch series—a revelatory urban fantasy set in contemporary Moscow.

They live among us. They fight among us. They’re the Others, a supernatural race of magicians, shape-shifters, vampires, and healers. Divided into the Light and the Dark, these rival factions have spent a millennium under a reluctant truce. Now, however, both sides must unite against the ultimate enemy.

A Light magician and high-ranking member of the Night Watch, Anton Gorodetsky fears nothing. But lately the threats are mounting. A reincarnated vampire has been terrorizing Moscow. His daughter’s school is ambushed by a bizarre chimera. And the Prophets have all reached the same chilling conclusion: The world will end in five days� time.

To ward off the apocalypse, an ancient council called the Sixth Watch must be assembled. After both Light and Darkness select their emissaries, Anton must enlist the unwilling aid of the four other Great Parties: the Vampires, the Witches, the Form-Takers, and the enigmatic Foundation. Journeying from Russia to Paris, the Alps, and New York City, Anton comes in peace—but he is prepared for war. For if he fails, none are safe.

]]> 388 Sergei Lukyanenko 0062428454 Lori 4 4.28 2014 Sixth Watch (Night Watch, #6)
author: Sergei Lukyanenko
name: Lori
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves:
review:
5 stars for the whole series. While this may not have been the strongest it was still great and an excellent conclusion. I'm a bit sad I won't be able to continue with Anton as this is the final book, I'll miss him.
]]> <![CDATA[Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)]]> 36153880 Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas?

Sci-fi’s favorite antisocial A.I. is back on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah's SecUnit is.

And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.]]> 150 Martha Wells 1250185432 Lori 4 4.40 2018 Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)
author: Martha Wells
name: Lori
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Charmed Life (Chrestomanci, #1)]]> 6423385 A bewitching comic fantasy by a master of the supernatural

Cat doesn't mind living in the shadow of his sister, Gwendolen, the most promising young witch ever seen on Coven Street. But trouble starts brewing the moment the two orphans are summoned to live in Chrestomanci Castle. Frustrated that the witches of the castle refuse to acknowledge her talents, Gwendolen conjures up a scheme that could throw whole worlds out of whack.

]]> 224 Diana Wynne Jones 0061756334 Lori 0 4.04 1977 Charmed Life (Chrestomanci, #1)
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Lori
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at: 2011/06/30
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Sir Nigel 13363702
Dame History is so austere a lady that if one has been so ill-advised as to take a liberty with her one should hasten to make amends by repentance and confession. Events have been transposed to the extent of some few months in this narrative in order to preserve the continuity and evenness of the story. . . . -- Arthur Conan Doyle

"Undershaw," November 30, 1905]]> 336 Arthur Conan Doyle 0330247115 Lori 0 to-read 3.40 1906 Sir Nigel
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Lori
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1906
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sky Full of Elephants 207293815 In this exquisite speculative novel set in a world where white people no longer exist, college professor Charlie Brunton receives a call from his estranged daughter Sidney, setting off a chain of events as they journey across a truly “post-racial� America in search of answers.

One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charles Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he’s now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from someone he wasn’t even sure existed: his daughter Sidney, a nineteen-year-old who watched her white mother and step-family drown themselves in the lake behind their house.

Traumatized by the event, and terrified of the outside world, Sidney has spent a year in isolation in Wisconsin. Desperate for help, she turns to the father she never met, a man she has always resented. Sidney and Charlie meet for the first time as they embark on a journey across America headed for Alabama, where Sidney believes she may still have some family left. But neither Sidney or Charlie is prepared for this new world and how they see themselves in it.

When they enter the Kingdom of Alabama, everything Charlie and Sidney thought they knew about themselves, and the world, will be turned upside down. Brimming with heart and humor, Cebo Campbell’s astonishing debut novel is about the power of community and connection, about healing and self-actualization, and a reckoning with what it means to be Black in America, in both their world and ours.]]> 304 Cebo Campbell 1668034921 Lori 0 to-read 3.82 2024 Sky Full of Elephants
author: Cebo Campbell
name: Lori
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Absolution (Southern Reach, #4)]]> 210367505 TOP SECRET: A clear and present threat exists. Open-ended. Existential. Confirmation via uncanny op. Nature of same: Unknown. Initiating entity: Unknown. Priority: High.

Ten years after the publication of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance � award winners and international bestsellers all, the first the basis for a now-classic film � Jeff VanderMeer brings us back for a surprise fourth and final foray into Area X.

Absolution opens decades before Area X forms, with a science expedition whose mysterious end suggests terrifying consequences for the future � and marks the Forgotten Coast as a high-priority area of interest for Central, the shadowy government agency responsible for monitoring extraordinary threats.

Many years later, the Forgotten Coast files wind up in the hands of a washed-up Central operative known as Old Jim. He starts pulling a thread that reveals a long and troubling record of government agents meddling with forces they clearly cannot comprehend. Soon, Old Jim is back out in the field, grappling with personal demons and now partnered with an unproven young agent, the two of them tasked with solving what may be an unsolvable mystery. With every turn, the stakes get higher: Central agents are being liquidated by an unknown rogue entity and Old Jim’s life is on the line.

Old Jim’s investigation culminates in the first Central expedition into what has now been labeled Area X. A border has come down, and a full team � well trained but eccentric � has been assembled to find Area X’s “off switch� somewhere in the volatile, dangerous terrain that has mysteriously defied all attempts to be explored, mapped, or controlled. A landscape that, one way or another, seems to consume all who enter it.

Sweeping in scope and rich with ideas, iconic characters, and unpredictable adventure, Absolution converges the past, present, and future in terrifying, ecstatic, and mind-bending ways. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.]]> 441 Jeff VanderMeer 0374616590 Lori 0 to-read 3.61 2024 Absolution (Southern Reach, #4)
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Lori
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moira's Pen: A Queen's Thief Collection]]> 60395737
This collectible companion to the New York Times–bestselling Queen’s Thief series is ideal for longtime fans, as well as readers discovering Megan Whalen Turner’s epic and unforgettable world for the first time. The collection includes all of the author’s previously published short fiction set in the world of the Queen’s Thief, as well as never-before-published stories, vignettes and excerpts, poetry and rhymes, a guide to inspiring objects from museums around the world, and a very special recipe for almond cake.]]> 224 Megan Whalen Turner 006288560X Lori 5 to-read
I need that story. Wah!]]> 4.00 2022 Moira's Pen: A Queen's Thief Collection
author: Megan Whalen Turner
name: Lori
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves: to-read
review:
Whoa what? I didn’t like the end only because I didn’t understand it fully and it’s not what I fantasized! I have to read the last 2 in order to work out the connections to the series, I think this is 2 generations after. Or is it 3?

I need that story. Wah!
]]> <![CDATA[The Mercy of Gods (The Captive's War #1)]]> 60484024
The Carryx—part empire, part hive—have waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy. Now, they are facing a great and deathless enemy. The key to their survival may rest with the humans of Anjiin.

Caught up in academic intrigue and affairs of the heart, Dafyd Alkhor is pleased just to be an assistant to a brilliant scientist and his celebrated research team. Then the Carryx ships descend, decimating the human population and taking the best and brightest of Anjiin society away to serve on the Carryx homeworld, and Dafyd is swept along with them.

They are dropped in the middle of a struggle they barely understand, set in a competition against the other captive species with extinction as the price of failure. Only Dafyd and a handful of his companions see past the Darwinian contest to the deeper game that they must play to survive: learning to understand—and manipulate—the Carryx themselves.

With a noble but suicidal human rebellion on one hand and strange and murderous enemies on the other, the team pays a terrible price to become the trusted servants of their new rulers.

Dafyd Alkhor is a simple man swept up in events that are beyond his control and more vast than his imagination. He will become the champion of humanity and its betrayer, the most hated man in history and the guardian of his people.

This is where his story begins.]]> 15 James S.A. Corey 1501995847 Lori 4 i-blew-it 4.05 2024 The Mercy of Gods (The Captive's War #1)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Lori
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: i-blew-it
review:
The only reason for 4 )ok really 4.5) instead of 5 is because I’m not 100% emotionally invested in the characters yet. It’s really more of an ensemble like the Rocinante crew but individually they are more gray. It’s a horrifying tale, but not horror - I can’t read horror. But psychologically tense. Oh and yes it’s excellent! It ended abruptly, too abruptly I need the next book!
]]> My Evil Mother 60497502 32 Margaret Atwood 1662504497 Lori 4 3.88 2022 My Evil Mother
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Lori
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:
I’ve been giving up from disinterest in many books lately that are rated highly, even when I formerly liked the another in a series. I figured it was me. Something wrong. And then I start this gem and from the first paragraph I’m hooked, savoring the sparkling writing, noting what a difference! Atwood at her best. And funny too.
]]> <![CDATA[The Wisdom of Crowds (The Age of Madness, #3)]]> 40701780
The Great Change is upon us...

Some say that to change the world you must first burn it down. Now that belief will be tested in the crucible of revolution: the Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry, and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds.

With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the world is turned upside down, no one is lower than a monarch. And in the bloody North, Rikke and her fragile Protectorate are running out of allies... while Black Calder gathers his forces and plots his vengeance.

The banks have fallen, the sun of the Union has been torn down, and in the darkness behind the scenes, the threads of the Weaver’s ruthless plan are slowly being drawn together...

]]> 520 Joe Abercrombie 0575095970 Lori 4 4.58 2021 The Wisdom of Crowds (The Age of Madness, #3)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Lori
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:
Will I live long enough to finish the next sequence of books? Joe is a lot younger than me! Please Joe hurry up!
]]> Unholy Land 39791736
Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina—a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century—has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts—possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

From the bestselling author of Central Station comes an extraordinary new novel recalling China Miéville and Michael Chabon, entertaining and subversive in equal measures.]]> 288 Lavie Tidhar 1616963042 Lori 4 3.60 2018 Unholy Land
author: Lavie Tidhar
name: Lori
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:
I am now officially a fan of Tidhar, I’ve read and enjoyed 3 of his books now. This may not be a perfect book but it’s a real mind fuck of what is and possible realities surround the Jewish state, this one located in Africa and was an actual idea in the early 20th century. I’m giving it 5 stars even tho I didn’t race to read it, I don’t think I’ll forget it. And my first inkling of the Kabbalah (not Madonnas).
]]> Boy Swallows Universe 37558445
Brisbane, 1983: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crime for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps throwing obstacles in the way - not least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.

But if Eli's life is about to get a whole lot more serious. He's about to fall in love. And, oh yeah, he has to break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day, to save his mum.

A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year.]]> 474 Trent Dalton 1460753895 Lori 4 4.31 2018 Boy Swallows Universe
author: Trent Dalton
name: Lori
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Weather 37506228
As Lizzie dives into this polarized world, she begins to wonder what it means to keep tending your own garden once you've seen the flames beyond its walls. When her brother becomes a father and Sylvia a recluse, Lizzie is forced to address the limits of her own experience—but still she tries to save everyone, using everything she's learned about empathy and despair, conscience and collusion, from her years of wandering the library stacks... And all the while the voices of the city keep floating in—funny, disturbing, and increasingly mad.]]> 208 Jenny Offill 0385351100 Lori 4 3.57 2020 Weather
author: Jenny Offill
name: Lori
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London, #7)]]> 36534574
Martin Chorley, aka the Faceless Man, wanted for multiple counts of murder, fraud, and crimes against humanity, has been unmasked and is on the run. Peter Grant, Detective Constable and apprentice wizard, now plays a key role in an unprecedented joint operation to bring Chorley to justice.

But even as the unwieldy might of the Metropolitan Police bears down on its foe, Peter uncovers clues that Chorley, far from being finished, is executing the final stages of a long term plan. A plan that has its roots in London’s two thousand bloody years of history, and could literally bring the city to its knees.

To save his beloved city Peter’s going to need help from his former best friend and colleague–Lesley May–who brutally betrayed him and everything he thought she believed in. And, far worse, he might even have to come to terms with the malevolent supernatural killer and agent of chaos known as Mr Punch . . .]]> 406 Ben Aaronovitch 1473207819 Lori 4 4.20 2018 Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London, #7)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Lori
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:
I think this was the best one yet! Top stars for sheer enjoyment. Love the London history.
]]> <![CDATA[Assassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool, #3)]]> 30688013
Fitz’s young daughter, Bee, has been kidnapped by the Servants, a secret society whose members not only dream of possible futures but use their prophecies to add to their wealth and influence. Bee plays a crucial part in these dreams—but just what part remains uncertain.

As Bee is dragged by her sadistic captors across half the world, Fitz and the Fool, believing her dead, embark on a mission of revenge that will take them to the distant island where the Servants reside—a place the Fool once called home and later called prison. It was a hell the Fool escaped, maimed and blinded, swearing never to return.

For all his injuries, however, the Fool is not as helpless as he seems. He is a dreamer too, able to shape the future. And though Fitz is no longer the peerless assassin of his youth, he remains a man to be reckoned with—deadly with blades and poison, and adept in Farseer magic. And their goal is simple: to make sure not a single Servant survives their scourge.]]> 847 Robin Hobb 0553392956 Lori 5
I'm so sad this is over. A perfect ending to a series that has wring my heart and given me joy. I will always love Fitz and Nighteyes, they are real people in my heart. There are so many ways an author could have screwed up the final chapter of this magnificent story, but instead it was perfect and right. All the stars.

]]> 4.61 2017 Assassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool, #3)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Lori
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/10
shelves:
review:
My reread. I rarely reread anything. This seems to my year since I knew I wanted to go back to some favorites just in case my mortality catches up. To invest in long series seems crazy but I reread for .3rd time both series by Dorothy Dunnet, after which nothing satisfied. I too k a risk with Fitz - would it hold up after the excellence of Dorothy. It stole my heart again. I’m pining for Fitz, again. I love this so much.

I'm so sad this is over. A perfect ending to a series that has wring my heart and given me joy. I will always love Fitz and Nighteyes, they are real people in my heart. There are so many ways an author could have screwed up the final chapter of this magnificent story, but instead it was perfect and right. All the stars.


]]> Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist � an informational topologist with half his mind gone � as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Lori 2 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: Lori
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Thousand Names (The Shadow Campaigns, #1)]]> 19486440
Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, commander of one of the Vordanai empire’s colonial garrisons, was serving out his days in a sleepy, remote outpost—until a rebellion left him in charge of a demoralized force clinging to a small fortress at the edge of the desert.

To flee from her past, Winter Ihernglass masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Vordanai Colonials, hoping only to avoid notice. But when chance sees her promoted to command, she must lead her men into battle against impossible odds.

Their fate depends on Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich. Under his command, Marcus and Winter feel the tide turning and their allegiance being tested. For Janus’s ambitions extend beyond the battlefield and into the realm of the supernatural—a realm with the power to reshape the known world and change the lives of everyone in its path.]]> 609 Django Wexler 0451418050 Lori 2 4.10 2013 The Thousand Names (The Shadow Campaigns, #1)
author: Django Wexler
name: Lori
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Faceless Killers (Kurt Wallander, #1)]]> 935308
Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecuter who has piqued his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.
--back cover]]> 280 Henning Mankell 1400031575 Lori 0 to-read 3.79 1991 Faceless Killers (Kurt Wallander, #1)
author: Henning Mankell
name: Lori
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The River Has Roots 211004176 Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.�

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters� bond but also their lives will be at risk…]]> 133 Amal El-Mohtar 1250341086 Lori 0 to-read 4.19 2025 The River Has Roots
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Lori
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Death at the Sign of the Rook 216081116 The stage is set. Marooned overnight by a snowstorm in a grand country house are a cast of characters and a setting that even Agatha Christie might recognize � a vicar, an Army major, a Dowager, a sleuth and his sidekick - except that the sleuth is Jackson Brodie, and the ‘sidekick� is DC Reggie Chase.

The crumbling house - Burton Makepeace and its chatelaine the Dowager Lady Milton - suffered the loss of their last remaining painting of any value, a Turner, some years ago. The housekeeper, Sophie, who disappeared the same night, is suspected of stealing it.

Jackson, a reluctant hostage to the snowstorm, has been investigating the theft of another The Woman with a Weasel, a portrait, taken from the house of an elderly widow, on the morning she died. The suspect this time is the widow’s carer, Melanie. Is this a coincidence or is there a connection? And what secrets does The Woman with a Weasel hold? The puzzle is Jackson’s to solve. And let’s not forget that a convicted murderer is on the run on the moors around Burton Makepeace.

All the while, in a bid to make money, Burton Makepeace is determined to keep hosting a shambolic Murder Mystery that acts as a backdrop while the real drama is being played out in the house.

A brilliantly plotted, supremely entertaining, and utterly compulsive tour de force from a great writer at the height of her powers.]]> Kate Atkinson 0385694970 Lori 0 to-read 3.78 2024 Death at the Sign of the Rook
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Lori
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/09
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]]> Telephone 53192116 An astonishing new novel of loss and grief from “one of our culture’s preeminent novelists� (Los Angeles Times)

Zach Wells is a perpetually dissatisfied geologist-slash-paleobiologist. Expert in a very narrow area—the geological history of a cave forty-four meters above the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon—he is a laconic man who plays chess with his daughter, trades puns with his wife while she does yoga, and dodges committee work at the college where he teaches.

After a field trip to the desert yields nothing more than a colleague with a tenure problem and a student with an unwelcome crush on him, Wells returns home to find his world crumbling. His daughter has lost her edge at chess, she has developed mysterious eye problems, and her memory has lost its grasp. Powerless in the face of his daughter’s slow deterioration, he finds a mysterious note asking for help tucked into the pocket of a jacket he’s ordered off eBay. Desperate for someone to save, he sets off to New Mexico in secret on a quixotic rescue mission.

A deeply affecting story about the lengths to which loss and grief will drive us, Telephone is a Percival Everett novel we should have seen coming all along, one that will shake you to the core as it asks questions about the power of narrative to save.]]> 233 Percival Everett 1644451204 Lori 0 to-read 4.06 2020 Telephone
author: Percival Everett
name: Lori
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/07
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]]> Jason and Medeia 15211590 531 John Gardner 0345292936 Lori 0 to-read 3.67 1973 Jason and Medeia
author: John Gardner
name: Lori
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Storm Beneath the World (Children of Corruption #1)]]> 203588014
"...a wildly imaginative, morbidly captivating, and slightly unhinged gut-punch of a story; this is fantasy like you have never read before." —Before We Go Blog

"Fletcher continues to create amazing worlds one after the other, and let me tell you this: this one is an absolute page turner." —FanFiAddict

"A solid ten out of ten!" —The Nerd Book Review

The gods have abandoned their creation, fled to the city beyond the clouds. Banished from the heavens, the Betrayer rules the hellish storm beneath the world.

Before the gods left this world, they cursed its people. The magical abilities the inhabitants once enjoyed became twisted and dangerously addictive. Now, to discover one’s talent is a curse. These corrupt souls are doomed to use their skills, improving and growing in strength, until they can no longer resist its lure. Starvation and death are the fate of every Corrupt.

When war with a neighbouring island becomes inevitable, four young Corrupt are sent to a hidden school to hone their dangerous talents. They are to be trained and used as weapons before the curse claims them.

United in purpose, divided by caste, only they can save their home.]]> 365 Michael R. Fletcher Lori 0 to-read 4.51 2024 The Storm Beneath the World (Children of Corruption #1)
author: Michael R. Fletcher
name: Lori
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Kavithri (Ghosts of Ethuran #1)]]> 197821747
Meet Kavithri. Outcast. Underdog. Survivor.

Kavi is a Taemu. Her people, once feared berserkers and the spearhead of a continent-spanning invasion, are the dregs of Raayan society. Their spirits crushed. Their swords broken. Their history erased.

But Kavi has a dream and a plan. She will do whatever it takes to earn a place at the secretive mage academy, face the Jinn within its walls, and gain the power to rise above her station and drag her people out of the darkness.

Except power and knowledge come at a cost, and the world no longer needs a Taemu who can fight. So they will break her. Beat her down to her knees. And make her bleed.

But if blood is what they want, Kavi will give them blood. She will give them violence. She will show them a berserker's fury.

And she will make them remember her name.]]> 448 Aman J. Bedi 1399609858 Lori 0 to-read 4.33 2024 Kavithri (Ghosts of Ethuran #1)
author: Aman J. Bedi
name: Lori
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/03
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]]> The Book of Elsewhere 202950650
There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.�

And he wants to be able to die.

In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.

A mind-blowing epic of ancient powers, modern war, and an outcast who cannot die. Combines Miéville’s singular style and creativity with Reeves’s haunting and soul-stirring narrative, unlike anything these two genre-bending pioneers have created before, inspired by the world of the BRZRKR comic books.]]> 352 Keanu Reeves 0593446593 Lori 0 to-read 3.26 2024 The Book of Elsewhere
author: Keanu Reeves
name: Lori
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/02
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]]> Navigational Entanglements 195790820
Using the power of Shadows generated from their own bodies� vitality, Navigators guide space ships safely across the a realm of unreality populated by unfathomable, dangerous creatures called Tanglers. In return for their service, the navigator clans get wealth and power―but they get the blame, too. So when a Tangler escapes the Hollows and goes missing, the empire calls on the jockeying clans to take responsibility and deal with the problem.

Việt Nhi is not good with people. Or politics. Which is rather unfortunate because, as a junior apprentice in the Rooster clan, when her elders send her on a joint-clan mission to locate the first escaped Tangler in living memory, she can’t exactly say no.

Hạc Cúc of the Snake clan usually likes people. It says so on her “information gatheringâ€â€•right after “poisoningâ€� and “stabbing.â€� So she’s pretty sure she’s got the measure of this they’re the screw-ups, the spares; there isn’t a single sharp tool in this shed.

But when their imperial envoy is found dead by clan poison, this crew of expendable apprentices will have to learn to work together―fast―before they end up cooling their heels in a jail cell while the invisible Tangler wreaks havoc on a civilian city and the reputation of all four clans.]]> 165 Aliette de Bodard 1250324882 Lori 0 to-read 3.77 2024 Navigational Entanglements
author: Aliette de Bodard
name: Lori
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/02
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]]> Somebody's Fool 62952125 The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls returns to North Bath, in upstate New York, and to the characters that captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers in his beloved best sellers Nobody's Fool and Everybody's Fool.

Ten years after the death of the magnetic Donald "Sully" Sullivan, the town of North Bath is going through a major transition as it is annexed by its much wealthier neighbor, Schuyler Springs. Peter, Sully's son, is still grappling with his father's tremendous legacy as well as his relationship to his own son, Thomas, wondering if he has been all that different a father than Sully was to him.

Meanwhile, the towns' newly consolidated police department falls into the hands of Charice Bond, after the resignation of Doug Raymer, the former North Bath police chief and Charice's ex-lover. When a decomposing body turns up in the abandoned hotel situated between the two towns, Charice and Raymer are drawn together again and forced to address their complicated attraction to one another. Across town, Ruth, Sully's married ex-lover, and her daughter Janey struggle to understand Janey's daughter, Tina, and her growing obsession with Peter's other son, Will. Amidst the turmoil, the town's residents speculate on the identity of the unidentified body, and wonder who among their number could have disappeared unnoticed.

Infused with all the wry humor and shrewd observations that Russo is known for, Somebody's Fool is another classic from a modern master.]]> 464 Richard Russo 0593317890 Lori 4 4.16 2023 Somebody's Fool
author: Richard Russo
name: Lori
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/06/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)]]> 204811915 People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?�

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,� Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.â€]]> 326 Elizabeth Strout 0593446097 Lori 4 to-read 3.98 2024 Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Lori
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/06/27
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]]> The Lion Women of Tehran 199798217 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]> 327 Marjan Kamali 1668036584 Lori 0 to-read 4.47 2024 The Lion Women of Tehran
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Lori
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/27
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]]> The West Passage 195790798 A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before.

When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.

Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer. Rats erupt from beneath the earth, fleeing that which comes. Crops fail. Hunger looms. And none stand ready to face the Beast, stirring beneath the poisoned soil.

The fate of all who live in the palace hangs on narrow shoulders. The too-young Mother of Grey House sets out to fix the seasons. The unnamed apprentice of the deceased Grey Guardian goes to warn Black Tower. Both their paths cross the West Passage, the ancient byway of the Beast. On their journeys they will meet schoolteachers and beekeepers, miracles and monsters, and very, very big Ladies. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for the world is about to change.]]> 373 Jared PechaÄek 1250884837 Lori 0 to-read 3.89 2024 The West Passage
author: Jared PechaÄek
name: Lori
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Charming Billy 11419533 Charming Billy is the winner of the 1998 National Book Award for Fiction. Alice McDermott's striking novel, Charming Billy, is a study of the lies that bind and the weight of familial love, of the way good intentions can be as destructive as the truth they were meant to hide. Billy Lynch's family and friends have gathered to comfort his widow, and to pay their respects to one of the last great romantics. As they trade tales of his famous humor, immense charm, and consuming sorrow, a complex portrait emerges of an enigmatic man, a loyal friend, a beloved husband, an incurable alcoholic.]]> 257 Alice McDermott Lori 3 3.78 1998 Charming Billy
author: Alice McDermott
name: Lori
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1998
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children, #1)]]> 40611463
A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly--she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza’s way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge.]]> 516 Jean M. Auel Lori 4 4.28 1980 The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children, #1)
author: Jean M. Auel
name: Lori
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/06/14
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]]> The Devils (The Devils #1) 212276037 A brand-new epic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Joe Abercrombie, featuring a notorious band of anti-heroes on a delightfully bloody and raucous journey

Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.

Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.

Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side]]> 560 Joe Abercrombie 125088005X Lori 0 to-read 4.43 2025 The Devils (The Devils #1)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Lori
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/14
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]]> The Wilding 208292474
Strange things have been happening at Lough Carrow, a vast rewilding project on the site of a former commercial peat-bog. Livestock mutilations. Rumours, myths from the neighbouring villages. Strange, unidentifiable tracks. On the trek in to the sleepover site they sight animals that have not yet been introduced to the park - wolves, wolverines, things older. Things thought long extinct.

As they near the centre of the wilding a boy realises he's forgotten his meds. A teacher volunteers to take him back to the visitor centre. Sure, what could go wrong?

That night the camp is attacked. A teacher is dragged away. Lisa's group is marooned in the wild. It is night, the four remaining kids are terrified, they need to get back to the ARK, but the wilderness seems to be playing with time and distance and something is out there. Something hungry and hunting...]]> 368 Ian McDonald 139961147X Lori 0 to-read 3.72 The Wilding
author: Ian McDonald
name: Lori
average rating: 3.72
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Lori 0 to-read 4.62 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Lori
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Titanium Noir (Titanium Noir #1)]]> 62052321 A virtuosic mashup of Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler by way of Marvel—the story of a detective investigating the murder of a Titan, one of society's most powerful, medically-enhanced elites.

"Cross-genre brilliance from the superbly talented Nick Harkaway." —William Gibson, New York Times best-selling author of Agency.

Cal Sounder is a detective working for the police on certain very sensitive cases. So when he's called in to investigate a homicide at a local apartment, he's surprised by the routineness of it all. But when he arrives on scene, Cal soon learns that the victim—Roddy Tebbit, an otherwise milquetoast techie—is well over seven feet tall. And although he doesn't look a day over thirty, he is ninety-one years old. Tebbit is a Titan—one of this dystopian, near-future society's genetically altered elites. And this case is definitely Cal's thing.

There are only a few thousand Titans worldwide, thanks to Stefan Tonfamecasca's discovery of the controversial T7 genetic therapy, which elevated his family to godlike status. T7 turns average humans into near-immortal distortions of themselves—with immense physical proportions to match their ostentatious, unreachable lifestyles. A dead Titan is big news . . . aÌýmurderedÌýTitan is unimaginable. But these modified magnates are Cal's specialty. In fact, his own ex-girlfriend, Athena, is a Titan. And not justÌýany—she is Stefan's daughter, heir to the massive Tonfamecasca empire.

As the murder investigation intensifies, Cal begins to unravel the complicated threads of what should have been a straightforward case, and it becomes clear he's on the trail of a crime whose roots run deep into the dark heart of the world.]]> 236 Nick Harkaway 0593535367 Lori 5 3.89 2023 Titanium Noir (Titanium Noir #1)
author: Nick Harkaway
name: Lori
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/06/05
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Even tho I guessed the identity of the ending twist about 1/2 through still loved this - and the twist had a lot more to it than the identity, a whole who what when surprise! Even without any of that immensely enjoyable.
]]> Moloka'i (Moloka'i, #1) 247922
In her exile she finds a family of friends to replace the family she's lost: a native healer, Haleola, who becomes her adopted "auntie" and makes Rachel aware of the rich culture and mythology of her people; Sister Mary Catherine Voorhies, one of the Franciscan sisters who care for young girls at Kalaupapa; and the beautiful, worldly Leilani, who harbors a surprising secret. At Kalaupapa she also meets the man she will one day marry.

True to historical accounts, Moloka'i is the story of an extraordinary human drama, the full scope and pathos of which has never been told before in fiction. But Rachel's life, though shadowed by disease, isolation, and tragedy, is also one of joy, courage, and dignity. This is a story about life, not death; hope, not despair. It is not about the failings of flesh, but the strength of the human spirit.]]> 400 Alan Brennert 031230434X Lori 0 to-read 4.17 2003 Moloka'i (Moloka'i, #1)
author: Alan Brennert
name: Lori
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Hunter (Cal Hooper, #2) 174156145
Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.

A nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.]]> 467 Tana French 0593493435 Lori 4 3.95 2024 The Hunter (Cal Hooper, #2)
author: Tana French
name: Lori
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/05/18
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]]> Looking for Alibrandi 82436
Caught between the old-world values of her Italian grandmother, the nononsense wisdom of her mom, and the boys who continue to mystify her, Josephine is on the ride of her life. This will be the year she falls in love, the year she discovers the secrets of her family’s past—and the year she sets herself free.

Told with unmatched depth and humor, this novel—which swept the pool of Australian literary awards and became a major motion picture—is one to laugh through and cry with, to cherish and remember.]]> 313 Melina Marchetta 0375836942 Lori 0 to-read 3.90 1992 Looking for Alibrandi
author: Melina Marchetta
name: Lori
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/07
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]]> There Are Rivers in the Sky 202468422 From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time.

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.�]]> 464 Elif Shafak 0593801717 Lori 0 to-read 4.38 2024 There Are Rivers in the Sky
author: Elif Shafak
name: Lori
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/30
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]]> Voyage of the Damned 210298804 The TikTok sensation from the UK has come to North America! This special first edition hardcover will include a gorgeous, shimmering jacket with effects, beautifully illustrated endpapers and detailed-stained edges.

A mind-blowing murder mystery on a ship full of magical passengers. If Agatha Christie wrote fantasy, this would be it!

For a thousand years, Concordia has maintained peace between its provinces. To mark this incredible feat, the emperor’s ship embarks upon a twelve-day voyage to the sacred Goddess’s Mountain. Aboard are the twelve heirs of the provinces of Concordia, each graced with a unique and secret magical ability known as a Blessing.

All except one: Ganymedes Piscero—class clown, slacker and all-around disappointment.

When a beloved heir is murdered, everyone is a suspect. Stuck at sea and surrounded by powerful people and without a Blessing to protect him, Ganymedes’s odds of survival are slim.

But as the bodies pile higher, Ganymedes must become the hero he was not born to be. Can he unmask the killer and their secret Blessing before this bloody crusade reaches the shores of Concordia?

Or will the empire as he knows it fall?]]> 464 Frances White 0778387429 Lori 0 to-read 3.80 2024 Voyage of the Damned
author: Frances White
name: Lori
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/24
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]]> Cage of Souls 40803025
Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new, is Stefan Advani, rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will treat with monsters, madman, mutants. The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?]]> 602 Adrian Tchaikovsky Lori 3 3.98 2019 Cage of Souls
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Lori
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/04/12
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review:
This is my first Tchaikovsky that I’m not raving about. As always the concept and world building was brilliant, with full character development but it was also a slog and I can’t pinpoint why. Never was I tempted to throw aside and I’m quick to do that, i read through to the end and yet. It may come down to the world and plot was so unpleasant and uncomfortable, as it was supposed to be. Glad I read it and glad it’s over.
]]> <![CDATA[Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt, #1)]]> 3437309
But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, its killing Art...And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable.

Only the ageing Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see that the long days of peace are over. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people, before a black-and-gold tide sweeps down over the Lowlands and burns away everything in its path.

But first he must stop himself becoming the Empire's latest victim.]]> 612 Adrian Tchaikovsky 0230704131 Lori 0 to-read 3.69 2008 Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt, #1)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Lori
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1)]]> 61612864
A girl has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.

The world has never even noticed them. That's about to change.

Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty, and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned.]]> 559 Mark Lawrence 0593437918 Lori 2
Yet the concept of the book was intriguing which is why I continued reading for as long as I did.]]> 3.94 2023 The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1)
author: Mark Lawrence
name: Lori
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves:
review:
I’m being generous here because I made it halfway when I decided I didn’t want to spend more time on this. O wasn’t eager to read it and thst may have been a problem/ o only read it in short segments so never got involved. I found it repetitive - ex main characters hair is half bleached from an incident we witnessed, then just a few chapters later it’s explained why her hair is 2 colors as if we weren’t there. I wasn’t keeping track of the long descriptions of each library chambers. I predicted what was supposed to be a big twist.

Yet the concept of the book was intriguing which is why I continued reading for as long as I did.
]]> Disquiet Gods (Sun Eater, #6) 176443792
The end is nigh.

It has been nearly two hundred years since Hadrian Marlowe assaulted the person of the Emperor and walked away from war. From his Empire. His duty. From the will and service of the eldritch being known only as the Quiet. The galaxy lies in the grip of a terrible plague, and worse, the Cielcin have overrun the realms of men.

A messenger has come to Jadd, bearing a summons from the Sollan Emperor for the one-time hero. A summons, a pardon, and a plea. HAPSIS, the Emperor’s secret first-contact intelligence organization, has located one of the dreadful Watchers, the immense, powerful beings worshipped by the Pale Cielcin.

Called out of retirement and exile, the old hero—accompanied by his daughter, Cassandra—must race across the galaxy and against time to accomplish one last, impossible

To kill a god.]]> 704 Christopher Ruocchio 1982193328 Lori 0 to-read 4.57 2024 Disquiet Gods (Sun Eater, #6)
author: Christopher Ruocchio
name: Lori
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:
This isn’t the last? Ugh come on.
]]> <![CDATA[The World We Make (Great Cities, #2)]]> 60568240 Three-time Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N.K. Jemisin crafts "a glorious fantasy" (Neil Gaiman) -- a story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City, in the final book of the Great Cities Duology.
Ìý
Every great city has a soul. A human avatar that embodies their city'sÌýheart and wields itsÌýmagic. New York? She's got six.

But all is not well in the city that never sleeps. Though Brooklyn, Manny, Bronca, Venezia, Padmini, and Neek haveÌýtemporarily managed to stop the Woman in White from invading--and destroying the entire universe in the process--the mysterious capital "E" Enemy has more subtle powers at her disposal. A new candidate for mayor wielding the populist rhetoric ofÌýgentrification, xenophobia, andÌý"law and order"Ìýmay have what it takes to change the very nature of New York itself and take it down from the inside.ÌýIn order to defeat him, and the Enemy who holds his purse strings,Ìýthe avatars will have to join together with the other Great Cities of the world in order to bring her down for good and protect their world from complete destruction.
Ìý
The Great Cities Duology

The City We Became
The World We Make
Ìý±Õ±Õ> 357 N.K. Jemisin 0316509892 Lori 3 4.13 2022 The World We Make (Great Cities, #2)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Lori
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/03/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Biography of X 127278790
"A major novel, and a notably audacious one." ―Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"It feels fairly rare for a novel to be hugely intelligent and moving and fun in equal measure, but with Biography of X , Catherine Lacey somehow―magically―makes the nearly impossible look easy." ―Lauren Groff

From one of our fiercest stylists, a roaring epic chronicling the life, times, and secrets of a notorious artist.

When X―an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter―falls dead in her office, her widow, wild with grief and refusing everyone’s good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM, her wife, knew where X had been born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification.

A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X’s widow, Biography of X follows a grieving wife seeking to understand the woman who enthralled her. CM traces X’s peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America's divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from Bowie and Waits to Sontag and Acker. And when she finally understands the scope of X’s defining artistic project, CM realizes her wife’s deceptions were far crueler than she imagined.

Pulsing with suspense and intellect while blending nonfiction and fiction, Biography of X is a roaring epic that plumbs the depths of grief, art, and love. In her most ambitious novel yet, Catherine Lacey, one of our most acclaimed literary innovators, pushes her craft to its highest level, introducing us to an unforgettable character who, in her tantalizing mystery, shows us the fallibility of the stories we craft for ourselves.]]> 416 Catherine Lacey 1250321689 Lori 0 to-read 3.88 2023 Biography of X
author: Catherine Lacey
name: Lori
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1)]]> 55399 Vast legions of gods, mages, humans, dragons and all manner of creatures play out the fate of the Malazan Empire in this first book in a major epic fantasy series from Steven Erikson.

The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting and bloody confrontations with the formidable Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen's rule remains absolute, enforced by her dread Claw assassins.

For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, surviving cadre mage of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze.

However, it would appear that the Empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister, shadowbound forces are gathering as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand...

Conceived and written on a panoramic scale, Gardens of the Moon is epic fantasy of the highest order--an enthralling adventure by an outstanding new voice.]]> 666 Steven Erikson 0765348780 Lori 4 I didn’t remember that all. I often think this is ultimately Fiddlers story but maybe Paran too?

What a hard beginning, or maybe even first third! So many names, too many to keep track of. But I had nothing else to read on my vacation, and I found the world intriguing, so whereas at home I might have tossed away, I plugged away, and oh what a world what a world. Everything started to come together, I stopped having to keep track of all the strange who what when and wheres in the index and appendix, and completely dug in. Great reading experience. I'll be reading the next in the series for sure. I'm giving this 3 stars only because of how bogged down I got for the first part, but after that it's a 4 all the way.]]> 3.91 1999 Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1)
author: Steven Erikson
name: Lori
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2008/01/01
date added: 2024/03/27
shelves:
review:
Edit: reread. And what an enjoyable time to comprehend what I’m reading without waiting 1/2?through. And what a ton of info! And Paran is a main character, w
I didn’t remember that all. I often think this is ultimately Fiddlers story but maybe Paran too?

What a hard beginning, or maybe even first third! So many names, too many to keep track of. But I had nothing else to read on my vacation, and I found the world intriguing, so whereas at home I might have tossed away, I plugged away, and oh what a world what a world. Everything started to come together, I stopped having to keep track of all the strange who what when and wheres in the index and appendix, and completely dug in. Great reading experience. I'll be reading the next in the series for sure. I'm giving this 3 stars only because of how bogged down I got for the first part, but after that it's a 4 all the way.
]]> <![CDATA[Gemini (The House of Niccolò, #8)]]> 270537
Now the opportunity for redemption is at hand, but Nicholas soon finds himself pursuing his objectives amid a complex, corrosive power struggle centering on the Scottish royal family but closely involving the powerful merchants of Edinburgh, the gentry, the clergy, the English (ever seeking an excuse to pounce on their neighbor to the north), the French, the Burgundians. His presence soon draws Gelis and their son Jodi to Scotland, as well as Nicholas's companions and subordinates in many a past endeavor—Dr. Tobias and his wife Clémence, Mick Crackbene, John le Grant, and Andro Wodman among them. Here, too, Nicholas meets again with others who have had an influence, for good or evil, in his King James III of Scotland and his rebellious siblings; the St. Jordan, Simon, and young Henry; Mistress Bel of Cuthilgurdy and David de Salmeton; Anselm Adorne and Kathi his niece. Caught up in, and sometimes molding, the course of great events, Nicholas exhibits by turns the fierce silence with which he masks his secrets, and the explosive, willful gaiety that binds men, women, and children to him. And as the secrets of his birth and heritage come to light, Nicholas has to decide whether he desires to establish a future in Scotland for himself and his family, and a home for his descendants.

Gemini Ìýbrings to a dazzling conclusion Dorothy Dunnett'sÌý House of Niccolò Ìýseries (synopsized in this volume), in which this peerless novelist has vividly re-created the dramatic, flamboyant world of the early Renaissance in historical writing of scrupulous authenticity and in the entrancing portrait of her visionary hero. Now, in a book infused with wit and poetry, emotion and humor, action and mystery, she brings Nicholas de Fleury at last to choose his heart's home, where he can exercise all his skills as an advisor to kings and statesmen, as a husband, a father, and a leader of men—and where, perhaps, we will discern a connection between him and that other remarkable personality, Francis Crawford, whose exploits Lady Dunnett recorded so memorably inÌý The Lymond Chronicles.]]> 672 Dorothy Dunnett 0375708561 Lori 5 ]]> 4.48 2000 Gemini (The House of Niccolò, #8)
author: Dorothy Dunnett
name: Lori
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves:
review:
Reread- magnificent. A more mature series than Lymond, it’s a psychological journey of a damaged brilliant man and woman who need to resolve childhood trauma. The historical facts are amazing, the scope of travel that Nicholas does is far reaching, even to the magical city of Timbuktu.

]]> <![CDATA[The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)]]> 150247395
Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.]]> 410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820702 Lori 4 4.28 2024 The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Lori
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]> The Vulnerables 125930473
Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez’s ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past.

Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others, who here include an adrift member of Gen Z and a spirited parrot named Eureka. The Vulnerables reveals what happens when strangers are willing to open their hearts to each other and how far even small acts of caring can go to ease another’s distress. A search for understanding about some of the most critical matters of our time, Nunez’s new novel is also an inquiry into the nature and purpose of writing itself.]]> 256 Sigrid Nunez 0593715519 Lori 4 3.59 2023 The Vulnerables
author: Sigrid Nunez
name: Lori
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]>