At 30 years old, Stella is highly successful, but getting some pressure from her mother to settle down and give her grandbabies. Stella has no experience with relationships and no good experience with sex, but she gets the idea that maybe sex and relationships are something that, like eye contact or small talk, an autistic person like her could get better at with practice. To get that practice, she hires an escort, Michael. Michael has some financial issues that led him to turn to escorting; he also has some daddy issues that unfold over the course of the book. Breaking his usual rules, he decides to take the job. But when they start developing actual feelings for each other, how can they admit they want a real relationship when they both think the other only signed up for a fake one?

My one sentence description of this book is "sexier, gender-flipped Rosie Project," but in the afterward, Hoang explains that she had it in mind to write a gender-flipped Pretty Woman before autism was part of the story, and also how she only realized that she was autistic as an adult after the idea that her daughter was autistic was raised. She writes about how naturally Stella's "voice" came to her, and it shows. The heart of this story is that, although our protagonists have some things they need to work through, neither of them needs to be "fixed." It's a story that we've seen before, but it's an own-voices version of it, which it feels good to see. It's authentic and sometimes moving and sometimes funny.

Overall: A

Behind These Doors is the first in the Radical Proposals series.

Aubrey Fanshawe, the second son of an earl, is happily in a long term relationship with Lord and Lady Herndale. Sure, he imagines he'll have to marry eventually, and sometimes it's lonely having to keep his part of their relationship secret, but he's mostly happy. One night at the theatre with them, he meets Lucien Saxby, and uncharacteristically takes him back to his own home before finding out that he's a gossip journalist. Of course Saxby has his own reasons for not wanting to spread that kind of gossip, but Fanshawe still wonders in the morning if he'd made a mistake to trust him. Then accusations are made that can only be fixed by Saxby being seen publicly as a friend of the Herndales, and he and Fanshawe discover that, as different as their worlds are, they can't ignore what they have together.

This was an impressively straight forward yet complex book. Yes, there's an issue that needs to be addressed that gives Saxby a reason to need to spend time in Fanshawe's social circle, but it's not a book with a lot of external plot, which is rare in the romances that I read. But the obstacles to Fanshawe and Saxby's relationship, although eventually surmountable, are believably difficult. Saxby was raised in service, and it takes a lot of work for him to learn to be comfortable on intimate terms with nobs, to realize when Fanshawe isn't judging him for his class but just being awkward, and for Fanshawe to learn what Saxby is and isn't willing to accept from him and to start thinking of working people in general as individuals with their own interests, not just Saxby.

The secondary characters are also well drawn. There's a nice subplot involving the women's suffrage movement that was part of the reason I was interested in this book. Saxby has a female coworker who wants out of the society pages whom I'd love to see more of in a future book. The only shortcoming that I might find with the book is that, in my estimation, some of the sex scenes rather dragged out, but others' mileage may vary there.

Overall: A-

​The Guns Above is the first Signal Airship novel.

Women aren't technically supposed even to serve on airships in battle, but putting them on the ground before the shooting starts is never actually practical, and when the captain of hers is killed in action, Josette Dupre is forced to take command. After the story of her heroism reaches the papers, the general has no choice but to give her a ship of her own. He also gives her his useless fop of a nephew, Bernat, to spy on her, with the hope that he'll report back how badly she's screwing up and provide an excuse ​to strip her of her rank. What follows is a military adventure in the vein of a steampunk Patrick O'Brian.

I was not prepared when I started this book for how actively I would dislike Bernat for so much of it. Somehow it didn't occur to me from the description that spying on Dupre and hoping to catch her screwing up would mean actively constructing reports so exaggerated as to be effectively false and working to perpetuate the worst stereotypes of women in positions of power. He's doing a lot more than just observing and while he does eventually pull his head out of his arse and switch sides I hated him a lot more until then than I expected to.

That said, the battle scenes- my least favorite thing in any sort of military adventure that involves ships of any kind or armies, individuals fighting are so much more interesting than large scale battles- were unusually well done, the characters were all fascinating even if one of the major ones was infuriating for quite some time, and the politics of the country and personal politics of those in positions of power both intrigue. I was on the fence about reading more in the series, but a review of By Fire Above indicated that it takes place mostly on land, which leads me to suspect it will continue in an O'Brian-like vein, with as much emphasis on its characters trials and tribulations off their ship as on. In light of that, I plan to keep reading.

Overall: A-

I was unaware when I read The Haunting of Tram Car 015 that it was a sequel to A Dead Djinn in Cairo. No previous knowledge of the world was required in order to enjoy this brief novella, however. Set in an alternate version of Egypt in 1912 in which all sorts of spirits and the like have reappeared in a steampunk, decolonialized world, the inspectors of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities initially think the removal of a spirit from a haunted tram car is going to be a simple matter, except for the cost. When the operator of the car discovers a technicality that means the cost has to come out of their ministry's budget, they have to get creative, and it turns out that instead of a routine djinn possession they may be dealing with something they've never seen before. Rich with background details, including an intense battle for women's suffrage, this was a quick and deeply enjoyable read. I would love to be able to visit this world again, but am also sure I would enjoy whatever other worlds the author may create next.

Overall: A

The Test is an intense psychological suspense novella about a man taking the citizenship test that will decide the fate of his entire family. Things very quickly take a turn, as the test is (unknown to him, but known to the reader) a very different sort of test than he ever imagined.

Although as I said, there is much known to the reader of this book that is not known to the protagonist, it's still the sort of book one doesn't want to say too much about. It pulls the reader in quickly and although, again, we know a lot more than the protagonist does in terms of what's going on, the suspense about how he will respond is strong. A subplot involving the dilemmas that one of the people pulling the strings faces also keeps things complicated.

Most of the time when I book strikes me as like a movie, I don't consider it a good thing. It means that it's all action and cliffhangers and short chapters and not much in the way of character and substance, but this could be a masterpiece of psychological horror cinema in the hands of the right Hitchcockian director, and as short as it is I doubt anything would even need be cut.

Overall: A

Christine Butcher has been the personal assistant to Mina Appleton, supermarket mogul, for twenty years. For that time, she has completely subjugated everything else in her life to the mission of making herself indispensable and cementing her position on the corporation's ladder. But, as scenes narrated by Christine as she recovers in a retreat of some sort indicate, eventually, it is all going to come crashing down.

This was a thoroughly satisfying psychological thriller. The first part of the book masterfully builds the suspense as we everything Christine was willing to do for her ambition, and then come to the courtroom drama that explains how things fell apart. But the twists don't stop there, and once the reader is caught up to the "present," there are more surprises coming in what Christine plans to do next. All in all, this was a deliciously inventive and deeply believable tale of ambition and betrayal.

Overall: B+

Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower is extremely different from her other books, in style as well as in the fact that it's fantasy rather than SF. I could try to summarize the concept, but it's so much easier just to cut to the chase: it's fantasy Hamlet. With a dash of the Iliad, but it's fantasy Hamlet.

Absolutely nothing is meant against it in that statement. It's fantasy Hamlet in a wonderfully inventive setting, with a parallel narrative that follows the development of a god. (That's where I was getting a hint of the Iliad; the power struggles and battles of the gods that run alongside the course of human events.) And it's not beat for beat Hamlet, but it has more beats in common than, say, The Lion King. And I've been known to accuse The Lion King 1 1/2 of being Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in spite of never having seen the former. Let's be realistic here: most of Shakespeare's plays were based on pre-existing stories. The point is how well the author/playwright does it.

And how well does Leckie do it? Well, I'll admit to having some trouble getting into it. Full disclosure: I have trouble with second person. A lot of it. The Hamlet narrative is told in second person, narrated by the god who narrates the god narrative in the first person. I know that some people find the second person very immediate, but for me, it's an obstruction to getting to know the POV character. First person puts you in the POV character's head, and third person, especially close third person, tends to tell you a lot about the POV character, but second person... well, people don't generally describe the person they are addressing to themselves.

I was on the verge of putting this book down around twelve pages in when it turned out somebody was out of the picture and his brother had taken his place instead of his son and heir and I went "Oh, it's Hamlet. I think that the 'you' being addressed must be the Horatio figure." And then I had a handle on it. I could sit back and relax and appreciate the literary quality of Leckie's writing, and occasionally go "yeah, that was Polonius" or whatever.

All in all, a difficult book to get started on, but one that makes persevering worthwhile.

Overall: A- 

Emmeline St. Germaine has two secret identities. One, the Rogue, is a gossip columnist with an eye for social injustices. The other, the Avengeress, strikes fear into the hearts of men who abuse the women and girls in their employ and whisks their victims away to safer situations. After one such rescue, the man- whom she had hinted in the paper as The Rogue was going to receive a visit from the Avengeress- is murdered. With much speculation that The Avengeress is behind the murder, she feels obligated to discover the real killer.

This was a strange book, in ways. The rest of my department at work can vouch for the fact that I am not the person you go to for personal experience reading cozy mysteries. It's not that I don't understand that people may want mysteries without high levels of gore, it's that while I can suspend disbelief all day long about, say, the existence of dragons, I have trouble buying amateur detectives- with series-length careers, no less, not just somebody who stumbles into a one-time situation in which they have good reason to get involved- in anything that resembles the modern real world. So, I don't read a lot of cozies. And while this is an amateur detective novel, unlike most cozies, I would have a very hard time suggesting it to fans of what my readers' advisory class in grad. school called "gentle reads." This book makes no bones about violence and many instances of sexual assault and rape, including pedophilia. And yet, the tone is extremely decorous. In spite of the gritty subject matter, the style is more in line with what I would expect of a cozy mystery, with sidebars about the need to acquire a new mourning wardrobe. I have nothing against the subject matter but sometimes found myself put out by the tone, and I have no doubt that there are many people who enjoy this sort of tone in mysteries who wouldn't be able to stomach the subject matter. But I can't say that it wasn't a good puzzle; I'm just not sure that it's blend of subgenres might not limit its audience rather than expanding it.

Overall: B

In an alternate universe where humans hibernate, Charlie Worthing is a young recruit to the Winter Counsels, the force that stays awake through the winter to protect society as everybody else sleeps. There are not-quite-zombies, possibly mythical creatures in the snow, and viral dreams to contend with, and when one of the viral dreams begins to come true, things get deeply weird.

This elaborately created universe could have been precisely what I was missing when I was reading The Golden State. It's not just a matter of how the world would be different if people hibernated and had to worry about building up fat stores, not waking prematurely, et cetera, and the impact that would have on everything from holidays to slang. It's the little differences that don't necessarily have any connection to the story except to remind you that you are in a different world. (One of my favorites was a passing reference to knowing all of the actors who've played Jane Bond.) This story is highly successful both as an exercise in world building and as a twisty crime thriller.

Overall: A