When I saw Kestrel’s Five Decembers won the Edgar for best novel, I wanted to read it. On a whim I requested it on Edelweiss+ and I don’t know what gods are “for my unconquerable [reading] soul,” but Hard Case Crime was kind enough to grant my request. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to read such a great novel. It kept me glued to the page and surprised me by making narrative about-turns I never anticipated. It had depth and sweep and the blurb, quoted below, doesn’t encompass it, but it’s a start:
December 1941. America teeters on the brink of war, and in Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a homicide that will change his life forever. Because the trail of murder he uncovers will lead him across the Pacific, far from home and the woman he loves; and though the U.S. doesn’t know it yet, a Japanese fleet is already steaming toward Pearl Harbor.
To start, Five Decembers is symphonic in narrative structure, with hero Joe McGrady, like Odysseus, trying to make his way home; it has four distinct yet concentrically interconnected movements. Unlike Homer’s hero, however, Circe’s cave is a transformative interlude of peace and love where Penelope and Circe merge and become one. History precedes it, encroaches on it, and history ends it, but while it lasts, it turns Joe McGrady from hard-boiled detective to a man stripped of everything except his word and honour. (more…)
I am happy to say that, with Return to Satterthwaite Court, I’m still of the mind that Mimi Matthews can’t write a bad romance. I am not damning with faint praise, merely noting how adept, how moving, how delightful I found Satterthwaite Court, no less for being the cute-meeting, courtship, and HEA to the progeny of two of Matthews’s most angst-ridden and, for this reader, most beloved romance couples, in The Work of Art and Gentleman Jim. And how lovely to see those two couples, who endured so much to win the right to be together, now grown old still in love, still happy, and wonderful parents. These are the charms of Satterthwaite Court, and while you may enjoy it without having read the first two, you may achieve greater reading pleasure by returning to the series’ first two romances and enjoying the series’s breadth. As for Satterthwaite Court, let’s go with the blurbish bits to orient us: 
I am, by nature, a cautious reader…I’m reluctant to try new authors, new foods, new settings, I like the tried and true. I’m cautious about beloved authors who migrate to new genres (please come back, Sarah Morgan and Molly O’Keefe), while I’d never begrudge a writer trying on new wings. So it was with a shaky heart I noted one of my favourite HP writers wrote a historical romance; “at least it’s still a romance,” I thought self-soothingly. And yet, I was delighted to realize I didn’t miss Collins HP because I was sucked in by The Prospector’s Only Prospect (not sure about the title, though), stayed up too late reading, spent the day half-into my responsibilities half-with-an-eye on the clock “When can I read my book again?” 
Reading Diana Biller’s Hotel of Secrets I thought of the importance of momentum in reading pleasure. More likely I yearned for it. And it was not to be had. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of anything but reading: work, Holy Week services, Pascha, and day-to-day stuff, leaks and stumbles, an unforeseen pharmacy trip, cooking and cleaning and so much laundry. Nothing crisis-ridden, but add a need for sleep and the e-reader, propped up to make for maximum lying-in, would watch me snort, snooze, and drool through the night…a mere two-or-three pages from where it had been turned on. All this to say, while I was enjoying Biller’s Hotel of Secrets, I didn’t get to enjoy it because my reading momentum was shot. Only devoted readers get this. Also all this to say Biller’s historical, opposites-attract romance, with its bacchanalian Viennese setting, one of the best heroes I’ve ever read, and terrific banter is worth reading with steady momentum over a few days. Maybe don’t start it, as I did, when you won’t have the luxury. 
Collins’s light-hearted, pleasant historical romance/mystery was read in one sitting…not because it inspired “can’t put this down”, though a fun read. Rather because my home-city experienced a devastating ice storm, which I drove through on Wednesday, and then went into the dark and cold for two days while power was out. The Kindle held out long enough for me to read Collins’s Spinster’s Guide in one sitting on Thursday and then sit on my review till the power came back. I have been thinking about how our reading is as much about the when and how we read a book as much as the book itself and how blogs, waning as they are, recount and reflect those circumstances. So, there you have how I read Spinster’s Guide in the dark and cold. 
Truth be told, I wanted to read Chin’s romance, and she a new-to-me romance author, because of the adorable cover. Cute house, great old-lady-pantsuit violet, and a puppy! (I love puppies, though I’m virulently allergic to them, which means a puppy-infused romance novel is an auto-sell; sadly, the puppy doesn’t show up till the last act…) For the most part, the goodness without was matched by the goodness within. I found humour, a wonderful hero, great friend-group, interesting family dynamics, and a great setting. The romance? I wish I could say I believed whole-heartedly in it. Here’s the set-up, thanks to the publisher’s blurb:
I have to start by saying what a fan I am of Will Darling, how much I adore him and enjoyed the first book in his series, Slippery Creatures. Hence, why I was keen to read Charles’s trad-pubbed romance, The Secret Lives of Country Gentleman. Would her unique voice and style be “standardized” for a wider audience, or could Charles retain everything that makes her self-published m/m romance unique? Also, with a selling point of “Bridgerton meets Poldark,” I was doubly intrigued. (I’m still mulling how much I liked this. But let’s consider Secret Lives on its own merit.) The publishers’ details for our orientation:
I’ve enjoyed Emma Barry’s romances since reading her histrom, Brave In Heart. I have sentimental affection for it because it was one of the first romances I reviewed on this very blog (turning TEN in May). So I was awfully glad to see another Barry romance on the horizon, except I admit approaching it with a gimlet eye: while I love Barry’s romances, I really really hate chickens. When I used to spend summers in my parents’ Greek village, stray, mangy dogs and squawking, fluttering, pea-brained, eat-anything, gag-inducing-smelly chickens were what I hated most about it (also roosters crowing at sun-rise when you’d been pickled in ouzo the night before). Like Chick Magnet‘s hero, Will Lund, I never warmed to heroine Nicole Jones’ chickens, but like Will, I liked Nicole and I liked what Barry wrought. I don’t think Chick Magnet has the wit and fun of Barry’s Political Persuasions series (once in a while, it peeked through), but I still read this in one sitting during a work-week from hell (five-hour Zoom, anyone?); and, except for an uncertain beginning, it got better and better with each page-turn. To give you a more-details picture, the publisher’s blurb:
Miss Bates Reads Romance 