So what have you been reading?

Everyone is an unreliable narrator in this book. Tavish has recently married Diya in a whirlwind romance in Las Vegas and has moved with her to New Zealand. It is a fresh start for him with a string of death of former lovers behind him.   There is a cop in LA that is convinced that he has gotten away with murder. Diya’s family wants to hold a huge Hindi wedding in six months so have asked the couple to say they are just engaged. Tavish comes back to the family residence with cake samples to find it in flames and Diya in the yard with multiple stab wounds.  Her sister-in-law has survived the fire with stab wounds as well, but the parents are dead and the brother-in-law is missing.  As the primary suspect in the killing his alibi checks out cursory but his past quickly comes back to haunt him with the police.  As he is investigating the family secrets the detective in LA has chapters in between the narrative where he is convinced that Tavish has gotten away with murder and he is trying to find out how he did it.  A good story with lots of twists and I didn’t see the ending coming.

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The day Celia came into her magical powers she cursed her oldest brother to live without love. Her father now ignores her and her middle brother causing the tow siblings to forge a relationship that was previously prevented to happen due to middle brother’s mother being of low status.  When the king decides that Celia must go to court to marry the prince she finds out that not is all as it seems with the reasons of the marriage and now she is nothing more that someone to be ignored by her new husband as she finds out the true meaning behind the war that has gone on between her people and the elves.  A good novella that reminds the reader of the power of words.

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Murderbot is on a mission to save some people and then it gets complicated.  Murderbot is running some new code that Art helped write to monitor their organic parts for emotional regulation. And when they find who they are looking to rescue a new complication arises and they have to rescue more people. Lots of internal dialogue as usual and seeing Three’s personality develop was great as well.

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Bob is doing pretty well for himself, he just sold his company for a large pike of money and for kicks he just paid to have himself frozen after death to be revived at a later date.  A hundred years pass, and Bob finds himself in a computer with no rights and all his careful savings gone. The current government wants to use him to pilot a probe to find new worlds to colonize and they barely tolerate him since his existence is blasphemy to their religious beliefs. But other countries have the same tech and it is a race to get Bob to space before he is blown up on the ground. Now Bob and several clone selves are out in the universe trying to find new places and maybe get back to Earth.

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This is a new story universe but does have some similar themes as The Others.  Humans coexist with The Arcana.  Beth is a new detective in the town of Penwych and due to a coin toss she didn’t understand she is taking her first case to get more details about a gun used in a weird domestic violence shooting.  Beth discovers that bargains made on the Isle of Wyrd can be more than they seem if you are not precise enough in your ask.  Not all the Arcana look human or act like humans. Beth ends up working several cases that have parts of them going to or coming from the Isle. Most visitors to the Isle come for sightseeing and fortunetelling but there are other powers on the island and never go thought an arch unless you have no choice. 

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This follows up the previous book but Davi breaks the fourth wall and gives a great recap of the previous book.  Davi heads back to the human lands with only Tsav to back her up to see what they can do to make the coming invasion go easier.  Of course things don’t turn out as she expects since she hasn’t been in the kingdom as she normally would have been in her past lives and now she has to keep coming up with plans on the fly to make everything go her way.   Davi finding out who did this to her and why was interesting. The entire setup for the book is great and it wraps everything up nicely.  An entertaining duology.

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When some pranksters in the pack decide that Asil needs to go on some blind dates so he isn’t alone at Christmas he agrees to it since the people he as been set up with don’t realize that they haven’t been talking to him and he wants to find out just who his Concerned Friends are.  Three of these dates were published in prior anthologies and rest is new for this book.  By the end of the book, you know the identity of Asil’s friend and there are some happy endings tucked in there as well.  A good enjoyable read. 

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Toby is getting so close to her due date and is fed up with the hovering that everyone is doing is driving her up the wall. Granted everyone has good reason to be hyper anxious but then Queen Arden lets her know that she needs her to track down missing treasures and the birth of her child can’t wait. But as soon as she starts tracking down what happens everything goes to hell and Toby can’t be found by anyone.  As usual there is so much coming out in the book that was planted there in the early books.  The bonus novella is a treat for fans of the Undersea kingdom.  

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Set in the same universe as The Spellshop but there is no need for the reader to have read it before this one since it doesn’t hurt the enjoyment of the story.  Terlu was a lonely librarian in the Capital of the Empire and used magic to make a sentient spider plant. Her punishment is to become a statue and placed in a library reading room as a warning to anyone who thinks about using magic without being a sorcerer.  Six years later she wakes up in a snowy wood not knowing where she is or how she got there.  She finds herself on an island full of magical greenhouses and one irritated gardener. Yarrow is the last person on the island of Belde taking care of the magical greenhouses created by a sorcerer that has died, but the greenhouse magic is failing and he needs help.  Terlu uses her linguistic skills to puzzle out the late sorcerer’s magic all the while worrying about being caught and turned back into a statue.  This is a very slow friends to lovers story and the setting is so gorgeous And I hope there will be more stories set in these islands.

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Mallory Viridian has seen way too many murders in her life and even after leaving Earth to live among aliens she hasn’t completely gotten away from it.  Currently in a lull ignoring her messages and trying to raise a baby spaceship. When a cruise ship full of mystery lovers is going to dock at the space station she finds out that she is supposed to give a keynote and meet with her agent who has been trying to reach her.   The ship docking isn’t a normal ship it seems to have limitless ability to adapt its interior to anything and has stored almost all of the data from Earth’s internet.  Mallory meets up with her agent and guess who gets murdered later on that day.  Now she needs to solve the murder and figure out what is so different about Metis. And for fans of the series, Tina is back bringing her own special blend of chaos.

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