Open Thread for Readers for December 2020
Misc / Need A Rec!book-pimp / Open Thread / Promotion25 Comments
Got a book you want to talk about? Frustrated with a book or series? In love with a new one? Found a buried treasure? An issue that keeps popping up in the books you are reading? Just want to chat about stuff in general?
READY PLAYER TWO arrived just now from the library so I will be all over that for the next few days. Fingers crossed Cline pulls it off a second time.
Alyssa Cole’s WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING blew me away, enraged and confronted me. Unlike the movie GET OUT, it didn’t terrify me, except for the fact that we should all be horrified by the realities of gentrification. Highly recommended.
I am thankful–as in full of thanks–for books; DA reviewers and readers; more books; friends, family who are still safe and healthy, although I haven’t seen them since March; The Crown, for making very clear what real dysfunction looks like and–even though Charles and I share a birthday and I thought as a kid that he would be my twue wuve–well, bullet dodged, right?
I am full of gratus (had to look that one up) for all the nurses, every healthcare worker, who is trying so damn hard to save us from ourselves. They deserve better.
Well, that took an unexpected turn, but that’s what’s been on my mind; it gets noisy in there sometimes. Stay safe, everyone. NB: “Full of thanks” came from a Thanksgiving card a friend sent, showing a picture of Winnie the Pooh who is full of honey and thanks. So say we all.
@Darlynne – I’ve been been wondering about When No One is Watching. Can you give more details? I don’t like horror at all – it’s bad for my mental health. But I can handle some suspense. What kind of scary is it?
Darlene, thank you so much for your kind words. I am grateful for DA’s readers, you and Cleo among them.
Like Cleo, I’m curious about the Cole.
We’re nearing the end of the year and I would love to hear what your (all of your) favorite 2020 books are!
Been reading a bunch of enjoyable authors’ latests – Ruby Dixon, Mary Frame, Chloe Liese, Mary Pauline Lowry, Devon Monk, Veronica Roth, Tara Sivec.
Unless I read something absolutely spectacular by December 31 (and that has happened in prior years), my favorite book of 2020 is N.R. Walker’s MISSING PIECES Trilogy (PIECES OF ME, PIECES OF YOU, PIECES OF US): a lovely story of two men in a long-time relationship and what happens when their world is turned upside-down by a terrible accident that wipes out one partner’s memory. A beautiful story about ordinary, decent people facing extraordinary challenges.
I also have to put in a word for an incredibly well-written, angsty, and gutting HP from 2016 that I picked up at random from my Friend of the Library Used Book Sale stash: Maisey Yates’s CARIDES’S FORGOTTEN WIFE, in which Yates makes plot elements that are usual hard for passes for me (death of a child, cheating), along with an almost irredeemable hero (borderline alcoholic, serial adulterer), into a book I could not put down. It tore me up in the best of ways. Undoubtedly my favorite book read in 2020 but published in a prior year.
Ooh, favorite book. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. It hit my every reading pleasure point. I also enjoyed the heck out of Sheri Cobb South’s John Pickett mystery series, which had a lovely romance arc, and felt … that I parted from friends … when I reached the end.
@LML: I love the John Pickett series, too. And I’m thinking there will be at least one more book – remember Julia has to deliver her pledge of affection for John.
@Jayne, I wandered around for a day or two after I finished the Pickett series like a lost person because there wasn’t another waiting for me to read that evening. I hope you are correct. Julia’s pledge felt like a finale to me.
@LML: I hope there will be another book. We just have to see John and Julia become parents!
@Cleo: @Janine: I can’t handle being frightened at all, so I delayed delivery through Libby at least three times. Finally decided I was being ridiculous and started it this week. I’m going to choose my words carefully, nothing that the book’s blurb didn’t share.
There is a real, tangible menace creeping into the neighborhood, this wonderful, familial, hundreds-of-years-old, stable community. When so many homes and businesses are changing hands, when people leave without a word, dread follows. The two unreliable narrators examine several theories through their research and uneasy coalition; they begin to doubt everything, including themselves.
The story is frightening, as in real, everyday, economic, racial and social horror; it’s the human toll behind the news, throughout American history. The “thriller” label belongs to the final several chapters, where some readers felt Cole jumped the shark. This is the spot where a reader like me might chicken out, but honestly, I was so invested at this point, nothing–not circus clowns or Chuckie–would have stopped me. Personally, I was satisfied with the ending, also sad and hopeful.
As 2020 has shown us, if you aren’t outraged, you’re not paying attention. If you’re offended, check yourself. This isn’t an easy read, it’s an important one.
Jayne and LML,
I’m currently working on John Pickett #11, in which John goes undercover by persuading Julia to have him committed to an asylum for opium-eaters, where he is tasked with rescuing a young woman being held there against her will. Sadly, I’m not writing as quickly these days, as the pandemic has knocked me out of my routine; instead of writing 1,000 words a day, I consider it a success if I get 400. I’m hoping for a spring release, but it may be late spring instead of, say, March, as I’d originally hoped. Anyway, this book doesn’t have a title yet, but I really need to come up with something; I really can’t keep thinking of it as “John Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”!
In Book 12, Dear Old Dad returns, precipitating some disturbing revelations about John’s past…and his future. This is the book where the baby will be born, and it’s been planned for several years now as the culmination of the series…unless, of course, I can’t bear to say goodbye to John & Julia.
After that, I want to do a mini-series (a trilogy, maybe?) with John’s nemesis Harry Carson as its hero; the groundwork for that is being set in Book 11, and John may well put in an appearance in at least one of them. Then, too, there’s Maxwell and his unrequited fascination for that actress next door at Covent Garden Theatre… In doing the preliminary research for the John Pickett books, I learned that all the London theatres engaged Runners, usually two at a time, to be on hand during performances (source: Henry Goddard’s posthumously published “Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner”), so there’s a natural tie-in there.
Finally, there’s Kit, and the opportunity for a Regency romance and/or mystery with a grown-up Kit as its hero. So even though the John Pickett series will probably wrap up in either 2021 or 2022, I think he’ll be popping up from time to time.
@Sheri Cobb South: Huzzah! Hooray! I feel as if I’ve just been given an early Christmas gift.
My top 7 (but only 5 authors!) reads of 2020 in no particular order:
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray
Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, and Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher
Slippery Creatures, and The Sugared Game by K.J. Charles
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Thank you for all of the reviews and recommendations this year! It’s been hard for me to concentrate enough to enjoy reading in 2020 because I have been so anxious, but on the other hand when I have found a book that is engaging, I have really fallen headlong into it.
@Sheri Cobb South, thanks for the look ahead!
@Janine, I’ve read and enjoyed many new to me books this year (by Martha Wells and Lois McMaster Bujold, for example), but my favorite reads this year have been rereads of past favorites such as SK Dunstall’s Linesman series, Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, and Lyn Gala’s Claimings series.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating the occasion!
I just finished The Bright and Breaking Sea by Chloe Neill. It surprised me how much I liked it. It’s not a romance. There is a small romantic thread that hasn’t resolved by the end, but I hope for more to come. I think readers of historical romance would like it though, as long as you don’t absolutely have to have the romance. It’s the Napoleonic wars, but in an alternate universe (France is called Gallia) with magic. Captain Kit Brightling is saddled with Viscount Queenscliffe to foil a plot against queen and kingdom. I had a lot of fun with it.
@DiscoDollyDeb—thank you, I’m a fan of amnesia so I will check those out.
@LML—I have The Bookish Life of Nina Hill in my TBR pile. It’s great to hear that you liked it.
@SusanS: I loved Honeytrap but disliked Beach Read FWIW. Have you read any of Aster Glenn Gray’s other books? I love her writing.
@Kareni: My husband and I recently started on Murderbot. We’ve only read the first so far but it was cute. I did a happy dance when Jayne emailed me yesterday to let me know that The Witness for the Dead is available for reviewers to request on Edelweiss. It’s only 200 or so pages which is a bit of a bummer but I read an interview with Addison where she mentions that it will have a sequel. I was also happy to see that just as I’d hoped, TWFTD is about Mer Celehar. The blurb is kind of amorphous; I can’t tell what actually happens.
@Janine: I didn’t even realize it until you mentioned amnesia, but both of my favorite books read in 2020 (the MISSING PIECES Trilogy and CARIDE’S FORGOTTEN WIFE) feature excellent use of the amnesia trope (a difficult one that needs to be handled carefully to avoid unintentionally hilarious melodramatics). Both N.R. Walker and Maisey Yates have created beautifully-written books from a starting point of memory loss.
@Janine: Yes, I read Aster Glenn Gray’s M/M version of Beauty and the Beast (Briarley). I liked/didn’t love it, so Honeytrap is definitely my favorite of hers so far. Have you read the others (The Wolf and the Girl, Threefold Tie)?
Whee! More John Pickett. Such a nice surprise. Here’s my strategy: I’ll buy the 11th when it is published and [try to] save it until the 12th is available. Then I’ll start at the beginning of the series and re-read my way through to the new books.
@Janine, I’m admittedly envious that you’ll get to read TWFTD early; I hope you’ll enjoy it! Have fun with the next Murderbot book.
@SusanS: I also liked / didn’t love Briarley. Yes, I read the other two. I liked The Wolf and the Girl and The Threefold Tie more. The Wolf and the Girl is pretty unconventional, though, in the way the second half plays out. It reads like at least as much as a friendship as a romance, the romance is very subtle and some readers didn’t see it at all. I think Sirius was one; she reviewed it with me and graded it in the C range. The Threefold Tie is much more clearly a romance. I really liked both; for me they were about on par with Honeytrap.. It’s really hard for me to choose a favorite between those three. I still have the others (Ashlin and Olivia as well as her children’s book,. The Time Traveling Popcorn Ball) left to read.
@Kareni: Well, it’s not a done deal that I’ll get an ARC. I hope I do.
I read a lot of great books this year including The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, If I Never Met You and several by new favorite author Jenny Holiday. I think my favorite was The Lost Love Song by Minnie Drake. It starts off sad but ends with HEA and a love song that’s makes it’s way around the world. I don’t often read books out loud to friends but I read portions to my niece. I also learned about the Mandela Effect.
@Misti: I missed your comment earlier somehow. The book sounds like it could be fun so I put it on my library’s hold list.
@Jenreads: I really should read Nina Hill; so many people have recommended it. I’ll check out The Lost Love Song.