#19 Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome by John Scalzi

A prequel to Lock In that came out about the same time.  I read this after reading Lock In and it doesn’t give any more real insight to the book except for the one senator that has an axe to grind with the government about all the spending on Hayden’s Syndrome.   The novella is written more in a series of news interviews and news briefs about the time discovery and the aftermath of the outbreak.  A nice complement to the book and good background for a hardcore fan but doesn’t really give much in the way of a story because of the writing style.

#20 Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

This book take Peter out into the countryside and out of London for almost all of the book.  Two girls are missing and there is a former wizard living in the area so Peter is sent out to check on the wizard to make sure he had nothing to do with the disappearances. The wizard is cleared but Peter wants to help with the missing children case. The locals agree since he cleared the case of any taint of magic and they are short staffed.  Beverly decides to come and see Peter and gets into a bit of trouble with a river on her way to the area.  Turns out there is no river spirit in the town he is staying out so there is no problem for Beverly to hang around.  As he is helping something turns up that makes this a magical case.  The book also covers some of what happened in the previous book but with it being set outside London it isn’t a bad book to start the series with, granted you will be spoiled on the previous ones but since Mr. Punch isn’t involved with this one it is an ok starting point for someone if they grab it blindly off the shelf.  I read the hardcover version that comes with an extra short story. The story has to do with an event that happens as Peter is traveling back to London from the countryside.   I really like these books and can’t wait for the next one.

#21 A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin

This YA book is starts with Georgiana being dumped off at a girls school with a reputation of reforming girls that don’t fit into society’s role during the Regency period.  Of course the school isn’t what it appears to be once Georgiana’s stumbles around and finds a hidden passage while trying to escape.  The premise sounded interesting but it took far too long for anyone to sit her down and explain what they really do at the school. The main reason they are so interested in having her there is she seems to be a outstanding chemist even if she burned down her parent’s barn while trying to make invisible ink. She is given the task of trying to come up with the ink in just a few days before a large conference in Vienna to deal with the problem of Napoleon, who has just been banished to Elba. Everything in this story just goes so fast along with building personal relationships. I wanted to like this book but having read some other series recently that also dealt with unusual finishing schools for girls this didn’t have the same charm as the other books.  An entertaining enough read but I don’t think I’ll bother to read the next one.


Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Netgalley.