Meet me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson

 Savannah is an assistant editor for a stodgy publishing house that only represents nonfiction and literary fiction authors. She has a secret dream of becoming a writer of clean romance and finally has an opportunity to get her manuscript into the hands of a famous editor. Meanwhile, the son of her very old fashion boss shows up at work and is appointed vice-president.  His presence is imposing, but Savannah begins to wonder if there is a soft underbelly to his impenetrable exterior.  Then, mysteriously, someone starts adding really pointed but insightful comments on her secret novel manuscript. At first offended, she begins to realize the mystery editor may be the key to getting her manuscript published.  They start a clandestine and anonymous correspondance about her book that gradually becomes more personal.

I can't remember why I put this in my book cue, maybe just because it is new. It is as a cute and very clean contemporary romance, but after just having finished the Major Pettigrew book, it seems pretty "cotton candy" in comparison. It is cliche and utterly predictable, and the characters and situations have no real depth.  It reads pretty much like a Hallmark romance movie script.  But...I like Hallmark, generally.  I think on the right week it would have been a perfect fit, but this week it kind of fell flat. (2022, 320)

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

 Major Ernest Pettigrew is an English widowed veteran who clings the to the standards of honor and decorum of an earlier age.  His facade of self-control slips one day soon after he hears that his only brother has died.  To his surprise he receives unlooked for compassion from Mrs Ali, a Pakistani woman, also widowed, who is the owner of the village convenience store.  The encounter begins a tentative friendship that gradually blossoms into something more. The small town where the two live is scandalized by their growing friendship, and the Major begins to see his earlier self in their reactions.  Mrs. Ali is also struggling with restrictions from her own traditional family culture. Can the Major step up, one more time, and become the hero Mrs. Ali needs?

This book was recommended to me by one of my co-workers and it is a new favorite.  It has the charm of my favorite movie, Shadowlands, without anyone dying in the end.  The Major is so charming, but his struggles with balancing his own sense of propriety and his attration to Mrs Ali are believable.  The Major's son's relationship with his girlfriend, built as it is on the hope of mutual financial benefit, it the perfect foil for the pure, selfless relationship his father has. I love how this book addresses cultural clashes and prejudice, but with a light touch that enhanses rather than sours the beauty of the mature romance. (2010, 358 p)

The Mislaid Magician by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

 In this third in the series that started with Sorcery and Cecelia, Ceci and Kate have both now been married 10 years, and each has a household of kids.  Ceci's husband, James, is still connected to  Admiral Nelson who is now the Prime Minister. Nelson asks James to investigate the disappearance of a foreign wizard who was researching a future path for a new railroad line.  Ceci leaves her three children with Kate and goes with her husband on the investigation. They soon discover that something very big is happening to the magical ley lines of England. Both couples get caught up in the intrigue and the two women, and their two husbands, exchange letters about their adventures. 

This may be my favorite of the three books because not only do we see the two women's letters, but also James and Thomas'. The way they talk about their children and all their shenanigans is delightful.  The men joke about their kids being hellions, but do it in such a way that you can tell they love their kids and love being fathers. The women talk about all their children's adventures in a funny understated way.  As a reader you can imagine all the second cousins playing and plotting in the background and having the times of their lives. This has been a very light and entertaining series and I am a little sad to see it end. (2009, 328 p.)

The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

 Petra Pena loves the stories her grandmother tells of their Aztec ancestors.  She wants to become a storyteller, too, but her life is upended when Haley's Comet goes of course and heads towards Earth.  Petra's family is given the chance to join a few hundred who will escape the utter distruction of the earth in star ships.  She will be put in stasis and awaken 400 years later on a new planet.  It is a desperate plan, and, unfortunately, desperate people send it off course, just like the comet.  When Petra wakes up the ship has been taken over by a group of radicals who want complete unity through complete homogeneity. Petra tries desperately to hold onto her dream of being a storyteller, while trying to find her family and see a way through to a new life like the one she was promised.

This is the Newbery winner for 2022.  I have been waiting on hold for it for 6 months, and it turned out to be nothing like I expected.  First off, it is amazing that a science fiction won the Newbery Medal.  The last real SciFi to win was The Giver written about 30 years ago. This book was like The Giver in theme, crossed with Wall-E in setting.  The whole message was about the importance of diversity and culture in making a life meaningful.  I guess I can see how that message could resonate right now with so many groups clamoring for inclusivity and tollerance.  

I must admit I didn't love the book.  The scientific elements were weak, which was distracting to me. Also, as Petra was telling the other children her stories, I kept thinking, "They have been on a space ship 400 years, why would they know that word, or that term?"  I also thought there wasn't much character development. Petra goes through horrific experiences, but doesn't really change much because of them. She endures, but doesn't grow. The thing that was the biggest turn off was that most of the book felt pretty hopeless. I knew it would have something of a happy ending at last, because it was written for a middle-grade audience, but it was 98% downer and only 2% happy ending. I am being overly harsh.  I am impressed with how original it was in concept, and different from what others are writing.  I can see how lots of people will have liked it. It just wasn't my cup of tea. (2021, 336 p)

Mairelon the Magician by Patricia Wrede

 Kim has been living on the streets of London since she was a small girl.  She has always dressed and acted as a boy because it was safer, but as a teenager is getting harder to hide her identity under ragged knee pants and threadbare jackets.  Kim gets hired to sneak into the wagon of a traveling magician. She has long since sworn off of burglary, but takes the job because she isn't expected to steal anything, just report what she finds. Her attempt goes wrong, and she is caught by Mairelon, who immediately recognizes that she is a girl.  He is intrigued to find out what she was hired to do and agreed to let her travel with him out of London to escape the wrath of her employer.  Kim discovers that Mairelon's magic act is a cover for a clandestine investigation related to some magical items Mairelon has been accused of stealing.  Mairelon recruits Kim to help him in his quest to clear his name, and in return Mairelon will start to educate Kim in simple magic, and courtly manners. 

I guess I am on a little bit of a Patricia Wrede binge.  This one was written years before the other two I read, but is has a very similar setting and magic system.  It was fun, but almost completely devoid of any romantic interest between the main characters. I expected it to be a "My Fair Lady" kind of plot.  It wasn't, but maybe there is more of that in the second book in the series.  One interesting part of the book is Kim's dialect.  She uses a lot of cockney slang terms I had never heard before, even though I have read a lot of Regency period novels.  I had to just assume the meaning of some of them by context.  I wonder how Ms Wrede became so fluent in their use?  (1992, 286 p)

The Grand Tour by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

Cecy and Kate are happily married to Thomas and James.  Both couples decide to do a "Grand Tour" for their honeymoon trip but they have not gone far before they get caught up in another magical mystery.  Someone is stealing ancient magical artifacts and Thomas gets recruited to try to discover what is going on.  Of course, the two brides are not to be left behind, so they all focus their considerable talents, magical and otherwise, to try to figure who is behind a plot that threatens all of Europe, before it is too late.

This is the sequel to Sorcery and Cecilia, and was pretty much like the first one.  I don't believe this one was written as a letter exchange like the first one was, but it could have been.  Chapters alternate between excerpts from Kate's deposition and Cecy's diary.  Wrede adds a lot of feminine fun to the book.  For example, when they all arrive at Paris, the men are worried because they need to do some investigating and are afraid their wives will be bored without them.  Hah! of course not.  What do two newly married women of good fortune do the first time they come to Paris? Shop, of course.  The final showdown is especially fun.  I already have the third book checked out.  (2006, 469 p.)

OCDaniel by Wesley King

Daniel tries to act like a normal 13-year-old.  He is on the football team mostly because his best friend wanted him to, and because it is a normal 13-year-old boy thing to do. He even has a crush on the most popular girl in his grade. Neither his friends nor his family knows that secretly he deals with compulsions, which he calls zaps, that force him to do repeated actions like turning on and off a light, or taking a certain number of steps to get from his bedroom to the bathroom.  These compulsions keep him up for hours at night and leave him in tears.  One day he is surprised when Phycho Sara, who never talks in school, says something to him.  He finds out that she isn't as crazy as she seems, and she enlists him to help her solve a mystery.  As he gets to know Sara, who has a long list of "conditions" he slowly starts to gain hope that he is not alone in his challenges.

This book got a lot of awards the year it came out.  In an author's note, King reveals that Daniel's experience with OCD is based on his own attempts to hide his OCD as a teen.  I am really glad I read this book because King does such an amazing job describing what it is like to feel an OCD compulsion.  It helped me understand the disorder better and feel more compassion for those who are dealing with it.  The writing is good and all the main characters are fully realized.  Although Daniel and Sara are both dealing with tough challenges, the book is hopeful and both characters experience victories that are fun to read.  This is a great one for young readers who like Fish in a Tree or Out of My Mind. (2016, 304 p.)

Star Child by Ibi Zoboi

This is a biography, writen in prose and free verse, of the science fiction writer, Octavia Estelle Butler.  Ms Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena California.  Her mother was a domestic servant and her dad was a shoeshiner. Ms Butler was named after her mother, so they called her Juni, short for Junior.  Ms Butler was a shy girl who lived in her own imagination as much as in the real world.  She became fascinated with the science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, but was disappointed that all the heroes of the stories she read were white men.  After finishing an associate's degree by going to night school, Ms Butler determined to be a professional writer.  Her first novel was published when she was 24, and she later went one to win many awards, including the Nebula award for outstanding science fiction writing. 

I mostly picked this book because I was expecting another book which was on hold to come in soon and I wanted to choose something short.  This is a children's biography intended to be inspirational, and indeed, Ms Butler's success after rising about disadvantage is very impressive.  There is a lot of reference to world events during Ms Butler's childhood like the cold war, and the space race that are written on a children's level.   The free verse parts of the book are interesting, I guess, but they would have meant very little without the prose sections.  They are more to give a mood than to actually tell part of the narrative.  I think the book is a good choice for a child who is an aspiring writer, especially if he or she is facing some of the same kinds of challenges--poverty, shyness, racial prejudice and dislexia--that Ms Butler overcame. (2022, 128 p)

Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

 Cecelia is disappointed when her aunt won't let her have her first Season in Regency London with her cousin, Kate.  The two girls have been inseparable since childhood, so they vow to write faithfully while Kate is away.  The magical trouble starts when Kate is invited to see a family friend initiated into the Royal College of Wizards.  Kate has a curious encounter with a powerful witch and soon both Cecelia and Kate are swept up in a dangerous mystery that involves two young men, two evil wizards, and chocolate pot that is more than it seems.

I read this book years ago but I guess it was before I started keeping this blog.  I decided to read it again when Kelsey, my daughter-in-law loaned me another book by Wrede that reminded me of this one.  This one came about when Wrede and Stevermer decided to play a game where they wrote letters back and forth one summer which each person taking on the role of fictional character.  Both authors enjoyed the game, and decided that, with a little editing, the pretend story they made up through their letters would make a good book.  The writing and plot are not as good as some of Wrede's other books, but it is a fun story and a clean magical historical romance.  (2004, 336 p)