The third mystery has Pleiti going to help a former classmate now at a rival university. She goes to recruit Mossa’s help against the plagiarism charges on her friend’s cousin’s academic work.  Mossa is depressed and sends Pleiti away offering no support and just wants to be left alone to wallow in her melancholy. Pleiti arrives at the university and uses the mantra “What would Mossa do” to guide her to help Villette find the person slandering her and stop her from receiving a donship from Stortellen University. It was fun to see the role of primary investigator on Pleiti’s shoulders. 

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

The third novella in the Nameless Restaurant series builds on the previous two but can be read by itself.  Mo decides to hire help for Kelly since even with no advertising they are constantly full of customers. We see returning customers and meet some new magical people. These stories are a perfect cozy to read in one sitting but are not to be read while hungry. Step in the door of the Nameless Restaurant and see what all the fuss is about. 

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

Almost everyone with a connection to the Folly has decided to join Dr Walid on holiday to Scotland. It seems an old friend from college sent him some samples from a dead sheep that might have been attacked by a large cat.  So a camping holiday to do some hunting for Nightingale, Abigail to see magic outside a urban setting, Peter to have a beach holiday with his entire family, his Dad to play some jazz with his band, and his Mom to ride herd on everyone. Of course there is more than a mysterious large cat that appears and disappears in the area, turns out there was some sort of man killed and Peter is roped into that investigation.  Everyone gets a turn on the page but the main focus is on Peter and Abigail each working on what appears to be different cases.  This is a great story that really takes advantage of the setting in Scotland and maybe we can get more about magic around the entire island.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

With Eve’s boss dead things appear to be going Eve’s way but not for long. When she presents the current Prime Minster, an Elder God, Upert’s skull she finds out that time travel is tricky and now she has to find and present another version of Rupert’s head to the PM. Rupert shows up and the geas that he has on her comes roaring back to life and she is almost powerless to fight him.  Eve finds herself walking the dream paths on the hunt for Rupert in the past and bring his head back to the present day. Stuck in the Regency and constrained by a woman’s role in that time, Eve has to find a way to escape the magical prison she has been put into. A great book and now it makes me want to reread the books about Eve.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

Looking back I forgot to do a post for 2023 but checking the 2022 post I’m keeping to slightly over half my reading is review copies mostly from Edelweiss and NetGalley.  I am getting more audio review books and more audio from the library.  I need to pick up more nonfiction besides cookbooks. I did read several but didn’t bother to review any of them.  I didn’t review much that I bought but I didn’t add in the personal copies that I had read in review version first.  Definitely using my library card to its fullest potential.

Hellboy and The BPRD: The Goddess of Manhattan [Dramatized Adaptation]

by Christopher Golden; Thomas E. Sniegoski, Full Cast Audio

Love Hellboy and this one has Liz and Abe. Set in the 1990’s with a goddess coming back to take over the surface that Lobster Johnson and his crew had defeated in the past. Good quips and great cast made me miss that we didn’t get more Del Toro Hellboy films.

 

This novella is from Zane’s point of view.  At the Summer Solstice party and charged with giving a gift to a woman his grandmother expects him to wed for a financial alliance for his house. When the Techwave breaks into the research lab of the house hosting the party Zane is right on them to figure out what technology they are trying to steal. But the mystery gets even more interesting when he sees Asterin Armas, his potential bride in the lab as well. The Techwave grabs her as a hostage and but Zane is able to free her, but the Techwave gets away and has what they are looking for.  Zane has several interesting conversations after all the action and you get a new spin on his character.  

What Song the Sirens Sang by Simon R. Green, Christopher Walker (reader), Bradley Foster Smith (reader), Colleen Delany (reader), Scott McCormick (Goodreads Author) (reader), Shanta Parasuraman (reader), Kay Eluvian (reader), Ian Russell (reader), Jenna Sharpe (reader), Keval Shah (reader), Khaya Fraites (reader)

Gideon and Annie are now in charge of Old Harry’s Place and need to find good things to stock it.  When a rock that contains the song of a siren is stolen from them, they are hot on the trail of who did it to get it back and show the world you can’t steal from Gideon. But before they can start to find it they need to find Switch it Sally, who has been kidnapped from her honeymoon with Lex. Everything ties together and with the help of a new character they solve the theft.

A shipwrecked 6-year-old girl is found and is in possession of a new demon. Penric helps her learn the language of where she is and makes sure her demon doesn’t go into ascension.  Everyone thinks that the best course of action is to rid her of it since demons should be in adults but this is Penric and things don’t always go the way they should. A great story as always in this universe.

Another good collection of stories set in the Valdemar universe with many returning writers. The main theme of the collection is reflected in the title so reading it all in one setting does bang the drum of the theme a bit much. But the Lackey story is a Vanyel story that is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet so there was that payoff. Not as many Herald stories but several to deal with Bards.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley