Children of the Fox by Kevin Sands

 Callan was trained by a master con man. Then one day his master disappeared and ever since he had been planning and carrying out his own little gaffs, trying to save enough money to give him a hope of a respectable life. One day he receives an invitation he can't resist--pull off one job, and be paid more money than he had ever imagined.  He recognizes it for what it is, a trick, but he still can't resist looking into it. His benefactor teams him up with other young teens and tasks them to steel a magical item from the head magician himself. Little do they know that by succeeding they might lose everything.

I put this book on hold after reading the last Blackthorn Key book. I was not disappointed.  This is an exciting and intriguing story with interesting characters. The setting and the magic system are a little fuzzy but I don't think most readers will be too disturbed by that. You can tell that the author is well established, because the book ends on a cliffhanger. They never let new authors do that, but here it works. I put the second book on hold right away, and it is already waiting in my cue. (416 p. 2021)

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

The SecUnit likes the small team of scientists it has been tasked with protecting as they investigate the possible assets of an uninhabited planet. The SecUnit, which calls itself, MurderBot, has secretly disabled its management program, and has downloads hours of action sitcoms to review while in stasis between its daily patrols and other responsibilities. It doesn't feel comfortable around the humans and always keeps its visor down around them.  Then one day something goes wrong. There is an attack on a base, and the team begins to wonder if there is more to it than the undocumented large fauna which injured one of the crewmen.  It is up to MurderBot to keep its unit safe as they investigate the unknown.

I can't remember who recommended this book to me but I really enjoyed it. The MurderBot has an interesting personality, both interaction-averse and highly protective of the scientists. It is querky in a kind of Asperger's way that is endearing. There is some language, but the book is otherwise clean for a YA SciFi. It is also really short and I think it would be a good choice for a teen reluctant reader. I enjoyed it enough I put the second on hold right away. (2017, 160 p)

P.S. As I was looking up the page count and publication date, I discovered it won a boatload of awards the year it came out. 

The Call of the Wraith by Kevin Sands

 In this forth book in the Blackthorn Key series, Christopher Rowe wakes up in a peasant's shed not knowing who he is or how he got there. The kind farmer tells him the was washed ashore after a shipwreck. As he starts to search for clues about his identity, he meets Tom and Sally, but even though they recognize him, he doesn't recognize them. They team up to try to figure out what happened, but also to solve a mystery.  Children in the village have been disappearing, and locals blame it on a ghost called the White Lady. As they investigate Christopher's past and the mystery of the missing children, Christopher's memories slowly return. 

When I was looking for what to read next, I found this book. I felt like I had read it before, but I didn't have it on my blog.  I started to listen to it, and realized I had listened to it before. It had been long enough that I didn't really remember the plot and I enjoyed listening to it again. I have really enjoyed all of the Blackthorn Key series. The characters are well drawn and the plots are clever.  I don't know how authentic the setting is, but the author does address a real middle-ages issue with each book.  This book deals with the problem of the Barbary Pirates.  I read book 3 in 2018, and I don't know why I waited so long to continue the series, but it won't be as long before I read the next book. (2018, 512 p)

Great Courses: Identity in the Age of Ancestral DNA by Anita Foeman

 Many people base a lot of their personal identity on their race and family narrative. What happens, then, if you take a DNA Ancestry test and discover that your race or family narrative is not what you thought it was? This is the guiding question of this 12-part Great Courses Lecture Series.  The presenter has spent 18 years doing research on this topic.  She finds volunteers that are interested in doing a DNA test, interviews them, and then gives them the test. When the results come back she interviews them again. She spends the beginning of the lectures talking about different ways people can deal with the results emotionally.  Then she does a couple of lectures talking about ethical issues surrounds DNA results, especially related to medical issues that might arise. Finally she talks philosophically about the different elements of personal identity and their importance in our lives.  

Sometimes when I finish a book and don't know what to listen to next, but I don't want to spend a lot of time selecting a new book, I just look at what Great Courses are available.  I don't know why I chose this one this week. It didn't turn out to be what I expected. I thought they would go into more of the science of how ancestral DNA tests determine where someone's ancestors are from, but this course dealt with that only tangentially. Instead it mostly dealt with how people feel when they get unexpected results.  It was a little amazing to me that the lecturer could find enough to fill six hours of lectures on this topic. After listening to it, though, I realized that because I am from a religion that encourages members to know their genealogy, I know much more about my ancestry than the common American. When I did an Ancestry DNA test it was no surprise at all that 97% of my ancestors came from the British Isles. Listening to these lectures opened my eyes to the plight of mixed racial people who might not know if their great grandparents were white, African, middle eastern, or American indigenous. I guess it could be a little disorienting if you have always identified as African American and then your Ancestry DNA test shows that you are only 1/4 African, 1/2 Asian and 1/4 white.  Do you then stop seeing yourself as African American and instead start identifying as Asian?  Or what if you do the test and find out that your parents used a sperm donor, and you have a dozen people who are your biological half siblings? It ended up being an interesting topic, though one I probably won't have occasion to apply to my personal life. (6 hrs, 2022)

The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren

 Lucy Swift is still smarting from a nasty breakup with her toad of a boyfriend.  She is going to Oxford to visit her grandmother who owns a knitting shop in the historic part of town.  However, when she arrives she finds the shop boarded up.  Neighbors tell her that her grandmother had passed away three weeks before. Lucy is devastated, and then overwhelmed when she finds out that she has inherited the knitting shop. Things get even more complicated when Lucy starts meeting strange people with ageless looks and cold hands who turn out to be the local vampires.  Lucy learns that her Grandmother has become a vampire, too, and though undead, seems almost like she was in life.  It turns out that her Grandmother was murdered and Lucy's life is also at risk unless she can discover who the murder is and what he was after. 

This book was recommended to me by one of my young adult patrons at the library.  It is relatively short and a very fun to read. Even though Lucy is 27, this book is appropriate for the 14-18 crowd and will appeal to teens who liked Twilight. This is more of a mystery than a romance, but there is a rather cute, single, police officer that keeps showing up at just the right time. The mystery elements are pretty good, though it wasn't super hard to guess the culprit.  Though the magic system is a bit fuzzy, there is a host of charming characters and a fair dose of humor. I just looked it up and it is the first in a series.  I just put the second on hold. (260 p. 2018)

Penny For Your Secrets by Anna Lee Huber

In this third installment in the Verity Kent series, Verity and Sydney Kent are pulled into murder mystery when Verity's friend, Ada, is accused of killing her unaffectionate aristocratic husband. A few days later they are asked to investigate another murder, this time the sister of one of Verity's spy buddies. As Verity and Sydney follow clues they continue to work on their relationship and deal with the ghosts of their past. 

This is a pretty fun series. There is a lot of chemistry between Verity and Sydney and their on again/off again passion leads to good sexual tension. That being said, all their marital exploits are completely off screen. The mystery elements are well crafted, and the portrayal of the roaring twenties in post war Europe is interesting. I only wish they had a different reader narrating the book. I don't know why they chose her.  Her accent and character voices are ok, but she totally doesn't understand phrasing. Oh well.  I am more tolerant of bad readers than some people so I will probably end up listening to more in the series. (2019, 336p)

Alice's Adventure in Wonderland: A Full-Cast Radio Play

 Alice is bored reading outside with her sister. The warm sun lulls her to sleep but she is awakened by a white rabbit with a waistcoat and a pocket watch.  She follows the rabbit down the well, where she finds of world of strange and of

ten rather rude characters.  In her attempts to follow the White Rabbit, she ends up growing very large, and very small.  She attends an "unbirthday" tea potter with the Mad Hatter and March Hare. Finally she ends at the Queen of Heart's garden party where she nearly has her head chopped off. Unflappable Alice is not afraid, and simply tips over the Queen's Soldiers, who are, after all, just a deck of playing cards.

I listened to this in preparations for an Alice themed library event we will be having a week and a half from now.  It had been a while since I had read Alice in Wonderland, but it is still as frightening and "trippy" as I remembered. This time through, however, I recognized that there are also some very clever puns and witty satire going on.  It is one of those books that people think were written for children, but which were really for adults. The recording is pretty good, with all of quite a large cast doing their parts pretty well. (2018, 2 hrs)