This review is based on a free copy received from the publisher through LibraryThings Early Reviewers program.

This... I can barely bother to recap this before saying it was the most boring novel I can imagine being written about the JFK assassination. The narrator, a reporter who asked a secret service agent on the morning of the assassination whether the bubble top would be on the car is approached, five years later, by that agent's daughter. She tells him that he has suffered a mental and physical breakdown from the guilt of having ordered the bubble top to be removed, and believes that he was responsible for Kennedy's death. She recruits the reporter to try to prove that he was not. FAR too many pages later, they test if shooting through the plexiglass barrier would have interfered with the shot. Not much else happens.

The primary question, whether or not having the bubble top on the car would have
saved JFK, is under-explored and eventually disposed of rather quickly, and very  little else, either about the assassination or about the characters, is explored  at all. The prose is Dan Brown level, and prose is not the selling point of  anything Dan Brown wrote. This book is under two hundred pages of actual story  and it still feels longer than it needs to be. The best thing I can say about this book is that it isn't really actively bad in anyway, it's just completely lacking in anything good.

Overall Grade: D

John Charming comes from a long line of Knights, an order dedicated to fighting supernatural monsters if and only if they threaten the Pax Arcana, the force that keeps ordinary humans from noticing the magic world around them. But Charming was kicked out of the order and hunted by them when they discovered that he is a sort of half-werewolf as a result of his mother having been bitten while she was pregnant. (He has some werewolf traits but does not transform.) Now he's hiding out in Virginia working in a bar, when one evening a Valkyrie named Sig comes in, hunting a vampire who killed several young women in town. But the vampire Sig was following turns out to be the least dangerous of them, Charming joins Sig's eclectic band of hunters (including among others her aging psychic lover, a cop, and an ex priest) in tracking down the rest of the hive.

Elliott James's Pax Aracana world is steeped in folklore, grounding it in the details and giving it the sort of substance that's all the more necessary when you're dealing with fantasy. Charming and Sig are both strong, complicated leads. Sig's determination that she has to break things off with Stanislav before becoming involved with Charming- or even if she doesn't become involved with Charming- is a welcome change from the too often seen trope that it's ok for one of the leads to cheat on the lover they started with when they meet the other lead. That Sig and Stanislav's relationship is treated as a real thing with a history that grew and is now dying on its own rather than just an impediment for Charming also goes towards making her a sympathetic person in her own right rather than just Charming's prize.

I am eager to read more in this series.

Overall Grade: A

I've been a fan of Susanne Alleyn since I first encountered A Far Better Rest, her retelling of A Tale of Two Cities, over a decade ago, through her Aristide Ravel mysteries set during and around the French Revolution, so of course I ordered this biographical novel about Charles Sanson, the master executioner of Paris, as soon as I saw a hard copy was available.

If you have read much about the French Revolution at all, you've probably heard the name of Sanson, the executioner. This is the first part of his life, spanning only from 1754-1766; the rest will be covered in a sequel. Even still, the slightly more than three hundred pages has to move very quickly through his life (starting with him beginning to practice with a sword, in case he needs to behead a nobleman, at the age of fourteen), intermixed with that of a rowdy adolescent whose path with eventually cross with his.

Perhaps as a result of the vast scope, for most of the novel the historical setting and details is the primary draw. However, as the end approaches and the pace slows somewhat, Sanson's struggle to be truly an instrument of justice, as much as his duty makes it possible, and mercy when he can offer it, begins to truly come into focus after a lifetime of being torn between unthinkingly following his hereditary path and running away from it completely.

I look forward to the second volume and  seeingthe eventual technological advancement in merciful execution that looms over eighteenth century France, although it is still decades away at the end of this book.

Overall grade: B

This review is based on an advance reader's copy provided by the publisher about a week after it was published, so not so much with the "advance" part and I didn't feel a lot of pressure to get it read ASAP.

Dark Diversions is less of a novel than a collection of short stories with a shared narrator, an American writer about whom we learn very little. The stories are all about people with power, in various senses, many of them rich, some of them military dictators. They are told with a fine eye for detail, and there is an interesting break midway through where the narrator muses on the purpose of narration. An engrossing and not particularly demanding read.

Overall Grade: B

This review is based on a free copy received from the publisher.

I don't read a lot of YA, but I am a big fan of myth retellings, so I went out of my way to ask the Tor booth for this at the last ALA conference and I'm going to try very hard to review it on its merits and not get wrapped up in things like why gods of the same generation are appearing to be vastly different ages and wondering where it leaves Apollo if Hades is looking like a high school senior. (Seriously, you have no idea how hard it is for me to concede that since Zeus, Hades, and Demeter are all ancient anyway, there's no reason why Hades shouldn't look eighteen, Zeus about thirty, and Demeter some age that is apparently not unusual for a woman with an eighteen year old daughter, instead of all being adults in their prime like I've always pictured the Greek gods of that generation since the younger generation of gods is their children. But I digress. It's what I do. I really hope that nobody considers any of the above spoiler-y, but there's really no way I can talk about this book without saying Persephone, and once I've said that anybody who knows the myth knows exactly where the entire story is going.)

For Piper's entire life the earth has been suffering from the Global Heating Crisis. Her mother keeps her always under her watchful eye, and even now that she's eighteen, she says that Piper must never have a boyfriend or leave her. But her mother is called away on a mysterious errand, which is Piper's chance to spend time with a couple of guys from her class, Shayne and Reese, and to discover a mysterious new world that eventually reveals her true identity. If you read inside the parentheses, you should know what that means.

I like the combination of the Persephone myth with global warming; the idea that the extreme crisis was caused because Persephone was no longer spending six months of the year in the Underworld was a great, solid premise. And I liked the relationship between Piper and her mother. As messed up as it was, and as controlling as her mother was, Piper still genuinely loves her, and it feels authentic. When they are separated and strange storms hit, Piper worries about her mother when she drops out of contact just as much as her mother would have worried about her. And her searching to find out more about herself and her place in the world when all she has to go on is the word of her mother is a compelling coming of age story even though most readers will figure it out long before she does.

However: I'm rather sick of the YA trend where the heroine must be torn between two equally hot guys. As I recall the Persephone myth, although Ares was one of the gods who courted her before she was taken by Hades, he was just one of several who was promptly dismissed and not any particular rival, so imposing a love triangle on the narrative is rather out of place. But apart from my just being tired of the fact that every YA story with a female lead must have two love interests for her whose teams fans can pick (even though it is probably obvious which will win), Piper actually mentally settles on Shayne extremely early on. Reese is at most a second choice when she isn't sure of Shayne's interest, and for the vast majority of the book she intends to have nothing to do with him except that he manipulates her mind. However, when Reese approaches her after she has decided that she's in love with Shayne, the focus is always on Shayne telling him to go away. I don't mind that Piper doesn't rediscover the full extent of her goddess powers until the finale of the book, but I do mind that she doesn't even verbally reject him and instead just stands by while Shayne tells Reese to leave her alone. Yes, Reese has powers, but she does have some latent powers even if she doesn't completely understand them for most of the book (for example, she touches dying, cut flowers and brings them back to life). She could fight him more. For the protagonist, she is rather passive as the two boys fight over her.

There will apparently be a sequel. I really hope it doesn't involve stringing along Piper being torn-but-not-really between Shayne and Reese for another book (although I'd be a happy ex-Latin student if Adonis were somehow involved).

If I try very hard to grade this for the target age at which it was written, not doing all the analysis that I would normally as an adult but remembering exactly how much I would have torn into details as the sort of mythology loving teenager who seems like the target audience: Overall Grade: B-

This review is based on a free copy provided by the publisher.

Griffin York, Duke of Halford, has been avoiding marriage for so long that his mother drugs him to drag him off on a trip to choose a future duchess. She takes him to Spindle Cove, aka "Spinster Cove," a village known for a high population of unconventional and unmarried women, and tells him to pick any woman in the tavern, and she will turn his chosen bride into a duchess. Griffin picks the servant, Pauline Simms, and then makes a private arrangement with her that if she proves herself to be a total disaster and makes his mother give up, he will give her a thousand pounds to open the circulating library of which she dreams. Pauline insists that the arrangement only last a week so that she can return to her developmentally disabled sister.

The My Fair Lady inspired plot was fun, although it seemed to me that if Pauline had really been trying to be a disaster in society she could have been a much bigger one. The banter between Pauline and Griffin was delightful, as was his scheming mother. And the sensuality was well done.

However, I found myself unsold on the Spindle Cove aspects of the story, from the initial assumption that whichever (known to probably be unconventional) woman Griffin picked would be willing. If these things happen all the time in Spindle Cove (and do they? Really, I haven't read the other books, but is it typical for the hero to just walk into town and announce which woman he'd like to marry?), doesn't anybody at least acknowledge that it's rather weird that they do? There were a few chapters that dealt with characters who were fairly obviously the hero and heroine of a previous book that made me feel like I was missing a lot of the charm because I hadn't read any of the others. Even the epilogue focused at least as much on the leads of a previous book as on Griffin and Pauline, if not more. Starting a book elsewhere than at the beginning of the series is always risky, but usually in Romance in which the leads change in every book the risk is more along the lines of accidentally "spoiling" yourself for details of how an earlier couple got together. I know I have read other series in which the protagonists of previous books make an appearance in the latter in which they are less distracting, and in which they're more natural parts of the plot than special cameos.

This book might be more enjoyable for an established fan of the series who knew why they should care about the cameos, especially if the weirdness of Spindle Cove has already been so well established for them that they take it as a given. As a place to start, it's mostly enjoyable but takes a bit more suspension of disbelief than I like and the cameos are a bit overdone.

Overall Grade: B-

This review is based on an advance readers' copy received from the publisher that I took my sweet time about starting to read because the book had been out for a month before they gave it to me anyway, so the boat had already sailed on the whole "advance" thing.

Since literally high school I have been disappointed that Caleb Carr only wrote one sequel to The Alienist. Fortunately, last year Alex Grecian came along with The Yard, another tale of a serial killer in the late years of the nineteenth century, when fingerprinting was new and not always accepted science. The Yard was the story of the newly formed Scotland Yard murder squad reacting to the murder of one of their own, as well as other crimes, not long after the Jack the Ripper murders. In The Black Country Inspector Day, Sgt. Hammersmith, and Dr. Kingsley trade the dirty, menacing city for a dirty, menacing, and sinking mining village, where they have two days to assist the local lawman in finding a missing couple and their youngest child. There is less focus on new investigative techniques in this book, apart from a brief discussion of blood stains, but the sense of foreboding remains. It is a sort of a nineteenth century rural noir.

Much of this book is very good. Day, Hammersmith, and Kingsley are all interesting characters to spend time with, even if we don't learn much more about any of them in this book than we already knew. And the threatening atmosphere of the village is as thick as ever. But there was quite a bit of sloppiness in the plot. Firstly, there was a murder that none of the other characters appear to have noticed by the end of the book. Second, there is a murderer who is important enough that we have several chapters from his viewpoint (though he is not behind everything) whose connection to the rest of the story remains rather loose and unexplained. The setting was strong enough to make me happy that I read it, but the story itself leaves much to be desired.

Overall Grade: B-

Confession time (this could be Librarian Shaming time if I took a picture with a sign): I spent a fair bit of time reading Les Miserables fan fic in high school and college. Not even about the musical, for the most part: based on the novel, or as it was affectionately known, "the brick." And really, the decrease in my reading it had more to do with a decrease in new material in the segments of it that interested me than in any "moving on" on my part. I still read new chapters in the epic works of my favorite authors when they appear. Specifically I liked the revolutionaries, and that was where I first really discovered slash. As a Trekkie, you'd have thought I'd have run into it before that, but what can I say? For some reason it made more sense to me to start by seeking out more about comparatively minor characters that Victor Hugo nevertheless gave complete personalities while telling us only about a small part of their lives than to look online for more stories about the main characters of three years of television shows and six movies. (I did a little of that later.)

I digress, but all of this is to say that I still have a fondness for good, solid, historical m/m. Alex Beecroft would be the best previous example of the kind of thing that I like. And I like historical fantasy. So when I saw that The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles was available through Overdrive, I put in a request for my library to purchase it. (Because no matter how promising something sounds, I try new-to-me authors through the library if I possibly can.)

Lucien Vaudrey, the new Lord Crane, has just returned to England after the deaths of his father and elder brother after spending two decades in China. Since his return, he appears to have been placed under a curse that causes him to attempt to commit suicide. His loyal servant Merrick suspects the magical cause and suggests that they should consult a shaman. A friend puts them in touch with Stephen Day. (It's a little unclear if he is a shaman; the impression I get was that the term isn't used in England but that it refers to the same type of practitioner.) Day finds the magical artifact that was used to place the curse and neutralizes it, but realizes that somebody may have used it to murder the late father and brother and then left it to kill Lucien when he returned. Crane sympathizes with the reasons why somebody may have wanted his father and brother dead, but Day is a justicar whose duties include tracking down those who commit crimes with magic, and so he goes with Crane to his ancestral home to investigate further.

I enjoyed the fantastical Victorian world that Charles created. I'm a little unclear on how widespread magic is, still: it was implied several times that a person who uses magic could be prosecuted for witchcraft, period, by the civil authorities, not just punished by the justicars for what they did with that magic, and yet all the characters in the story seemed pretty open about who used it. Maybe it's a country vs. city thing, combined with Crane just having returned from China where shamans work openly? Maybe that will become clearer as the series goes on. And I enjoy the two main characters, both separately and how well balanced they are as a couple. Lord Crane is a survivor, strong and resourceful, and deeply committed to being different from his father and brother. Day, although physically unimpressive because he burns so much energy on magic, is a powerful magician and often takes the lead when danger looms. And although I would have said before reading this book that I was thoroughly sick of servants who are apparently their employer's best friend, the unique background between Lord Crane and Merrick made their relationship thoroughly believable and Merrick completely enjoyable.

I'm eagerly anticipating the next book in the Charm of Magpies series.

Overall Grade: A-

I started reading the School of Gallantry series just before the second one came out, Lord of Pleasure. Delilah Marvelle was promoting it on Smart Bitches Trashy Books, having been told that the publisher was planning on dropping the series and hoping that another could be convinced to pick it up if it sold well. Years and a couple of other trilogies later, she's gone to self publishing and released another full length book in the series and this novella with more to come, and it was worth the wait. (At one point on Facebook before she began self-publishing the books she asked how long we would wait for another title in a series. I responded that I'm still a G.R.R.M. fan so apparently I haven't hit my limit yet.)

The series is built around a school for seduction that an aging French courtesan runs for a select group of men. They overlap in time and share some characters but can be read in any order. However, Romancing Lady Stone touches only slightly on the school. It explains some backstory and we are told will also link to characters that will appear in her next planned series.

Now for the details: Konstantin Alexie Levin has until recently provided protection for powerful criminals and others who require muscle, but is now trying to make a living by less violent means. Now a deposed French duke has offered him a third of his property in return for saving his life and wishes to give it to him now, as soon as Konstantin can leave Russia and meet him in London.

Lady Cecilia Stone wakes up in a coach in Russia, realizing that she has been robbed and drugged. Her traveling companion has abandoned her and she is alone in Russia with no money, in need of reaching St. Petersburg where she plans to talk her son out of marrying an actress. Konstantin, who is traveling in the coach, offers to escort her to St. Petersburg and help her find her son.

This is a substantial novella with well constructed characters; Cecilia's concern for the future of her daughters should anything damage the family reputation back in London feels justified, and Konstantin's acceptance of that fact once her son drives it home for him marks him as a worthy hero. English and Russian society do come across as feeling like two different worlds, and when the happily-ever-after arrives, it feels like both a viable solution and not such a painfully obvious one as to make the reader think that there shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

If you haven't read the School of Gallantry novels, this will give you a taste of the dialogue, strong grasp of setting, and sexuality level of the series. If you have, this will make the wait for book four a bit more bearable.

Overall Grade: A

Miss Gwen is not only Jane Wooliston's chaperone, she is deeply involved in the operation of the spy ring that Jane runs under the name of the Pink Carnation. When Jane's younger sister Agnes goes missing from her school, there is reason to suspect that she may have been abducted in order to get to Jane.

Colonel William Reid has just arrived in England from India to discover that his daughter, one of Agnes's classmates, is also missing. One of William's sons has been involved in the opium trade, and unbeknownst to him has also been spying for the French. Which girl was the target? When Miss Gwen and Col. Reid go out to find the girls, she discovers that a man who appears to be a born rogue may be just what she needs.

I love the banter between Miss Gwen and Col. Reid in this book. It ranks with The Seduction of the Crimson Rose for the best banter in the series. It's also always impressive how Lauren Willig can show new sides of characters that we already know when they get a book from their point of view. The books up to now have only shown Miss Gwen as the younger generation understand her; getting inside her own head and also seeing her as a man roughly her own age (or a bit older) does gives us the chance to see her through fresh eyes while still remaining true to the character that we love.

I didn't enjoy the modern bits quite as much in this one. I'm not somebody who routinely dislikes them, but there's a find-the-treasure plot struck me as slightly ridiculous. Furthermore, it didn't seem to me that anything actually developed in Eloise and Colin's relationship this time around. By the end of the previous book, it was established that they'd be going long distance while Eloise returned to America to teach. In this book, Eloise angsted a lot about the fact that she was going to be returning to America to teach and they had a conversation near the end about the fact that they'd just have to go long distance for a while. Also apparently Eloise is willing to give up her own flat and move in with Colin, which is itself an indication of seriousness because it means she's wiling to count enough on their not breaking up to risk being out of a place to live if they do, yet still insists that she isn't sure how serious their relationship really is. The framing device doesn't offend me in itself but Eloise just bothered me in this book.

The bulk of the book is irresistible although weakened by the modern plot.

Overall Grade: B