Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree

Can you capture lightning in a bottle twice? Yes. Three times? That’s iffier. 

I first heard about Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes from Seanan McGuire’s Twitter account. She often will talk about upcoming books that she loves, and she described it in such a way that I was very much looking forward to reading it. 

It didn’t disappoint- it was a very nice, sweet, cozy story, and I really enjoyed it. It might have bordered on being too twee, and the inventions of cinnamon rolls and other coffee shop staples felt a tad too convenient at times, but that didn’t detract from the joys of the book. 

So I was overjoyed when Tor and NetGalley gave me an eARC of the prequel, Bookshops and Bonedust. Set years before L&L, this book focused on a Viv who was just starting out in the mercenary business when she gets injured and stuck in a seaside town to recuperate. The cast of characters was even more fun than the last book, and Viv seemed either to be more well rounded or just better written in this volume. 

Fast forward two years later and this new book, Brigands and Breadknives, which is a sequel to both! I received an audio eARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This book focused on Fern, the ratkin bookseller from the last volume. It is now a few years since Viv opened up her coffee shop and Viv has convinced Fern to move to her city and open a new bookstore there. I loved revisiting this world and I mostly enjoyed the main chunk of this narrative. But the story begins with Fern disaffected with book selling for no discernible reason and being too afraid and/or embarrassed to tell Viv, and then accidentally running away.  

I understand the author wanted Fern to go on an adventure. The problem is how he got her into it. It made Fern into both a moron and an asshole. She ends up just disappearing from her friends (and her pet!) with zero notice. And she acts very unlikable throughout much of the story. There are alot of wonderful things about this book, particularly the titular bread knife, but the author didn’t think enough about how much I would hate the protagonist for her choices in this book. 

I listened to the audiobook of this novel at 1.75.

Cesar Romero by Samuel Garza Bernstein

I never used to think I was a person who liked biographies until I read the Power Broker. I got into it when listening to the Power Broker podcast on 99% Invisible with Elliot Kalan and once I started it I couldn’t stop. After finishing that I read all of Robert Caro’s LBJ books and I realized I did like biographies after all. So I was curious when I saw a Cesar Romero biography on NetGalley. I of course loved the ‘66 Batman series, but otherwise I didn’t know much about Mr. Romero. This book was enjoyable and well written, but it felt a bit thin. I know not everyone is Robert Caro, but I was hoping for a little more depth here. This book sometimes fell into plot synopses of Cesar Romero’s work without delving very deeply into his inner life. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and am glad I read it. 

Silver and Lead by Seanan McGuire

A marvelous book, a tad smaller in scope than the last two but no less impactful.  

I love Seanan McGuire’s body of work. (Note: I review a bunch of her books so I am copying part of some of my other reviews here to save time.). She has quickly become my favorite living writer and I feel very lucky that she is so prolific. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person. 

I started reading her works under her own name, starting with Sparrow Hill Road, which is amazing, but I picked it because I was intimidated by her long running October Daye series. I had read some Urban Fantasy before, and I fondly remember Mercedes Lackey’s Diana Tregarde books, but my tastes run more to science fiction and then secondary world fantasy, so I was hesitant to dive into such a long series. I picked up the first book, Rosemary and Rue, when it was on sale as a kindle daily deal, and I found it somewhat disappointing compared to her other work. I reminded myself that it was her first published novel, so I cut it some slack. Then Incryptid was nominated for the Best Series Hugo in 2018 and I dove into that instead. I loved it! So I vowed to give Toby another chance. And I was so glad that I did! It is now one of my favorite series. 

October Daye is perpetually on the top of my best series Hugo ballot - she deserves to win. This type of excellent in a long running series is what this award was designed for and none of the other nominees come close.

I was overjoyed when Tor and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of their first October Daye book after the series switched publishers because we have been waiting a long time to find out what the fallout of was of Toby and a large chunk of Faerie was totally ensorcelled. This was another amazing entry in this series and I cannot wait to devour the next one!

 

This book picks up several months after the end of the last one. It felt a little bit like when your favorite sitcom picks up after summer break and the characters tell you that not much has happened in the past few months. Toby is a few weeks from her due date and has been effectively sequestered by her family, who are concerned about her safety and the safety of the pregnancy. I would’ve had a lot of harder time reading this book if I didn’t trust Seanan McGuire so much as an author. I know that she is never going to have her characters be raped, and I believed that she would not hurt or kill this baby. 

This book had a couple of blasts from the past show up again to cause trouble, and it really made me wish that I had done a complete reread before this book. My plan is to get all of the audiobooks and listen to them before the next volume comes out. But she did a good job catching people up on what was going on. Is it bad that one of my favorite parts of the book was a tease for the future? Once again, Marcia popped up in a very tiny role and I can’t wait to find out what that reveal is going to be.

Many of the secondary characters got a moment to shine in this book, though I would have liked to see a little bit more of Jazz. I feel like she is often sidelined. 

But that is a minor quibble. This book was a fantastic page turner from beginning to end. 

Making History by K. J. Parker

 

A while back, I became a fan of K. J. Parker. I first heard the name of this author via Jo Walton’s monthly reading lists on Tor dot com. So I requested an eARC of A Practical Guide to Conquering the World by K.J. Parker and loved it! It was grabby (in a “can’t put this book down” kind of way) and it was thoroughly enjoyable. I said I’d be looking out for more books by K. J. Parker and I later really enjoyed an eARC of the Long Game and Pulling the Wings off Angels, which were both delightful books! After that, I went back and read Sixteen Ways to Defend A Walled City and How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It, which were also wonderful, and the Saevus Corax books, which were also a blast.

This story centers on a linguist in a university who is roped into a project by the current dictator to help gin up a nonexistent ancient language as part of a project to justify an impending invasion of a neighboring polity. Like most of Parker’s books that I have read, this one is also a first person tale in which the protagonist is a clever bastard (in a thoroughly enjoyable manner). The final twist genuinely surprised me and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. 

This novella captured all of that Parker wit without overstaying its welcome.  Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell

 

I fell in love with John Wiswell’s writing when I read his story “Open House on Haunted Hill”, which blew me away. Last year, I was thrilled when I got an eARC of his first novel. 

I adored Someone to Build a Nest In and was eagerly anticipating his next book.  I was over the moon when DAW and NetGalley gave me an e ARC of Wearing the Lion in exchange for an honest review. 

This book is the story of Heracles and Hera and their relationship. As a lapsed classicist who loves mythology, this seemed like the perfect book for me. And it was! This was the best, most human, and kindest version of Heracles I have ever seen; likewise, Hera and the other deities are at the most relatable. 

This book kept surprising me. As someone with a passing familiarity with the 12 Labors of Hercules, the nontraditional ways this Heracles solves the problem of how to deal with the Nemean Lion and the Lernean Hydra were surprising and ultimately delightful. The murder of his children hit hard, and I would’ve appreciated a content warning, but all in all this is s sad warm, loving book. 

As I said about his previous novel,everyone who loves monsters should go buy this book. It was that good. 

The Emilie Adventures by Martha Wells

 

These books are so much fun! I really enjoy the writing of Martha Wells.  (And I missed running into her in a College Station bookstore by about 16 minutes last December!) We all love Murderbot, right? Murderbot is one of the absolute best characters to come out of SF in years. I remember when I read the description of Martha Wells’s All Systems Red and thought to myself “I’ve got to put that on hold at the library!”  And I was right - it was excellent. I have eagerly awaited each new Murderbot book and also have been reading some of Ms. Wells’s other fantasy books. (The Witch King was good, but my heart belongs to Murderbot.)

So I was very excited when NetGalley and the publisher gave me an eARC of The Emilie Adventures, an omnibus reprinting of of two fantasy novels written by Martha Wells, in exchange for an honest review. 

These books are more YA than some of her other books, and maybe that’s why I enjoyed them so much? They really reminded me of fantasy adventure novels I read as a kid. It’s a steampunkish secondary world fantasy, where there are guns and airships are powered by magic. Emilie is a young teen orphan who runs away from an unkind uncle and ends up stowing away on a ship headed inside the hollow world in the first book, and, although not great at everything, she is quite capable without seeming like she has main character plot armor. I had so much fun with these books, especially the second one, which dealt well with the repercussions of her running away from home as well as including some exciting “alien” characters. Highly recommend. 

Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft: Heir of Strahd by Delilah S. Dawson

 

When I was younger, I read a lot of tie-in fiction. I became a huge Star Trek fan in the late 80s, and once I was all caught up on TOS and TNG, I turned to the novels. I read all the ones that had existed at that point and then bought them when they got released. That is how I found authors like Diane Duane and Peter David. I also loved the Dragonlance books. When they started coming out with D&D novels in other campaign settings, I bought the spelljammer and Ravenloft books too. So I was very excited when I saw that there was a new D&D tie in novel available on NetGalley. I got an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

This book was so much fun! It really had the feel of a modern adventuring party that did not optimize themselves for anything besides fun. There was a cleric, a Paladin, a wizard, an artificer, and a barbarian. They all got captured by the mists and ended up in Barovia where they get invited to Castle Ravenloft to meet Count Strahd. 

Reading through this book and seeing some of the classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters and spells really gave me a warm feeling inside.  The characters in this book are quite interesting; although some of them seem flat at first, they all have hidden secrets. Sometimes I thought the manner in which the secrets were revealed was a little heavy-handed, but that is a minor complaint. I really enjoyed this book, including a late shift in location that was unexpected but delightful.  The final twist was something I bounced off of initially, but after sitting and thinking about it for a few days, I think I’m OK with it.  This was a fun read!