The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton

 Ella Durand comes from a long line of Conjurors, magical folk who can gain access to the underworld.  They have been excluded from interacting with Marvellers, magical people who gain their power from the stars.  Ella's father is the foremost "High Stepper" among the Conjurors, and arranges for Ella to be the first Conjuror to be admitted to the Marveller school, the Arcanum Institute.  She is very excited to go, but is met with more prejudice and fear than she was expecting. She manages to make two friends who are also misfits, Brigit, and Jason, but they all become concerned when their favorite teacher who is sympathetic to Conjurors, Masterji Thatker goes missing. Meanwhile a prisoner escapes from magic prison, and threatens all the Marveller world.  Can Ella defy prejudice and become the hero the Marvellers need?

This is an interesting book.  Ella is a cross between Ruby Bridges and Harry Potter. There are a lot of the now very familiar magic school tropes; the two best friends, the wise teacher mentor, the rumors of the rising force of evil etc.  There is also a lot in there about being the first to cross the lines of segregation and the cruelty of child to child prejudice. There is also lot of southern black folk tale references in the book, which reminded me of Disney's The Princess and the Frog which my husband and I watched recently. I generally liked the book, but I thought it was too long and the pacing was a bit slow.  It could have used a 25% edit. Ella is also a little too perfect.  She is facing hard stuff, but she, herself, doesn't have many (or any) personality flaws. Brigit, with her grumpy disdain for the Marvellers, is a more interesting character than Ella. That was one of the strengths of the Harry Potter books. Harry was not at all perfect. In the first book he isn't the top student, and got stuck looking at the Mirror of Erised every night because he is messed up about his parents.  It is hard to write a flawed character that is still endearing but when a writer can manage it, the book is better. There are two more in the series, and I might read them, or I might not. (416 p. 2022)

The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass

 A little free library appears in the middle of the town overnight.  Evan looks at the books, and is astonished to find his father's name on the check out lists of many of them.  They were clearly from the Martinville Library that burned down many years previous, but what did his father have to do with that?  As Evan and his friend dig into the mystery, the Ghosts of the Martinville History House are starting to fade. AL and the yellow cat try everything they can think of, but in the end, it may be Evan who can solve the mystery and save the spirit of the library.

What a sweet little story!  It was like an ode to the power of libraries to bring people together.  I loved that Evan has a functional family and a true friend in Rafe. The mice and the cat are adorable too.  It is so rarely that you find a book that is truly wholesome, and also engaging. It would be interesting to know how the two authors collaborated. I wonder if one author wrote the Evan chapters, and the other wrote the chapters about the residents of the History House. I could feel the style of Ms Stead, but I am not as familiar with Ms Mass. (224 p. 2023)

This Side of Murder by Anna Lee Huber

As WWI draws to an end, Verity Kent is still grieving the death of her husband 15 months earlier.  She is reluctant to accept an invitation to a houseparty to celebrate the engagement of one of her husband's friends until she receives a mysterious note telling her that she must go to the party to find out details about her husband that prove he was a traitor. On the way to the party she meets another of her husband's friends, Max, who was the commander of his battalion during the war.  They soon discover they are looking to solve the same mystery.  Then one of the guests is found dead, and everything becomes more ominous. 

Here is another gothic mystery romance from Huber. She is a good writer, and her books add a nice variety to my historical romance diet. I am glad she didn't cave to the "sunshine and roses" kind of happily-ever-after ending, opting, rather, to keep things complicated. The mystery plot was pretty good as well.  I was impressed that I didn't really see how everything would work out until the end. That being said, I thought she wimped out a little by having a the culprit give a long confession to explain all the details. Still, I am sure I will be revisiting Huber's books in the future. (2017, 304)

The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

Peter Grant is a multi-racial constable-in-training in London. At the end of his two-year probationary training, he is about to be assigned a desk job, when he happens to meet a ghost who is a witness to a brutal murder. His ability to see the ghost brings him to the attention to the head of Detective Thomas Nightingale, who is part of a secret department in the London police charged with investigating supernatural phenomenon.  As Grant and Nightingale start investigating the murder, more brutal murders follow, and eventually they discover a disturbing pattern.  Peter is hastily accepted as a wizard apprentice to Nightingale, and his training is put in overdrive to try to get him up to speed to meet the new threat.  Not all police approve of the supernatural investigators "mucking around," but they eventually have to admit it will take something pretty magical to solve the huge problem that is threatening to bring London to its knees.

I have been looking for something fun and fresh to read.  I found it in this book which is like Percy Jackson crossed with Lockwood and Co. for adults. There is a lot of snappy patter and humorous pokes at London culture and folklore. Grant is a likeable chap and the magical characters they encounter are cleverly drawn. Full disclosure, this book is solidly PG-13, (or even R because of frequent use of the F word) with a lot of language and sexual references in the dialog. There isn't, however, on-screen sex, and most of the violence also happens off-screen. I am trying to decide why the content didn't bother me more than it did.  I think it is because it was all done in a sassy, sarcastic way. If language and sexual references bother you, though, this is definitely one to skip. (2011, 392p)

P.S.  I enjoyed this as I read it, but I realized a few days after I finished it that it left a bad taste in my mouth. It was like enjoying a rich dessert, but then getting a stomach ache from it. It is a bit too edgy for me after all.

No Other Will Do by Karen Witemeyer

 Emma Chandler runs a community of women in late 18th century Texas. It is a safe haven for women who are escaping from the unrighteous dominion of men. When an anonymous enemy starts threatening the women of the community, Emma turns to a man for help.  Malachi Shaw is a orphan that Emma's aunts took in for a while when he was a teenager. Malachi has harbored a secret love for Emma for more than a decade, and so when she asks for help, he comes running. They are old friends, but when they see each other as grown adults, it soon becomes clear that their relationship goes beyond friendship. With Emma's dream in peril, and Malachi's career with the railroad on the line, can the take time to look for their own "happily ever after?" 

Still looking for something light and uplifting to read, I turned to Karen Witemeyer. She is on the more "preachy" side of Christian historical romance writers, but I was totally up for it last week. The writing is decent, the plot is interesting, and there is a whole cast of colorful characters. It's a bit saccharine, and I wouldn't want to read Witemeyer every week, but this week, it was just the thing. (2016, 366 p) 

Chester Keene Cracks the Code by Kekla Magoon

Chester lives with his mother, but he is convinced that his father works as a spy for the government. Chester knows how hard his mother works to keep food on the table, so he hides from her trouble he is having from a bully at school. One day Chester receives a mysterious note that seems to be a clue to a mystery.  Chester believes it must be from his spy father and sees it as a chance to help him and make him proud.  A girl from school, Skye, also gets a clue, and Chester finds himself the unwilling partner to a girl who is opposite from him in almost every way. As they work together on the clues, they form a friendship, but that friendship is strained by Chester's feeling of urgency to find and help his father. Soon they are in more trouble than either of their could dream of, and only team work, patience and friendship can get them out of it. 

After reading The Night Letters I was looking for something much lighter to read.  This one was listed as "humorous" so I thought I would give it a try.  It wasn't really very humorous, but it was well written and I am not sorry I read it. Chester is a authentic character, trying so hard to believe something despite all the evidence to the contrary.  He is also on the spectrum, and the author clearly has had experience with kids who can't abide changes in their schedule, or need the familiar and routine to feel safe. Skye is also a very endearing character, and the picture of the "ideal friend."  This is a good choice for kids who like the "social issues" kinds of books like Wonder or Fish in a Tree. (2022, 304 p.)

The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani

Nisha and her twin brother, Amil, live with their father who is a doctor, their grandmother, and a servant, Kazi, in what is about to become Pakistan. Nisha's father is Hindu, and Nisha and her brother have been raised to be Hindu, but their mother, who died in childbirth, and Kazi are both Muslim.  When India gains its independence from England, they partition the larger country of India into India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims.  Violence erupts, and people who used to be their friends, are suddenly trying to drive Nisha's family from their home. The politics are confusing to the children, and they are upset to have to leave their home and friends.  On the trek across the desert to the border they face starvation and violence, but their struggles also bring their family together. 

I don't know how I missed this book back in 2019 when it won a Newbery Honor. (Actually, I was so caught up with being a new library director that year, I missed a lot of things.)  This is a beautifully written but heartrending historical fiction.  Both Nisha, who is shy and studios, and Amil, who is active but has learning disabilities, are sympathetic characters. Every character in the story is fully drawn and the reader can feel their internal struggles.  Before reading the book I was not really aware of what happened when they partitioned off Pakistan from India, and it made me wonder, as Nisha did, why freedom from England should have created such discord in India. An author's note at the end explains more about the humanitarian tragedy. (304, 2019)

DaVinci's Ghost by Toby Lester

One of the most famous drawings of all time is DaVinci's Vitruvian Man.  This book, written by an art historian, explains the philosophical and religious symbolism of this famous image which began with Greco/Romans and carried on into Christianity. He explains how the idea of inscribing the human form within a square and a  circle was described by Vitruvius, and then passed from one major philosopher/artist to another until it was finally embodied by DaVinci. He also gives a brief history of DaVinci's life and work and how the drawing fit into his own world view. 

Here is another book I read to get ready for my trip to Italy in November. It may seem strange to have a 300 page book discuss just one piece of art, but here it is.  It is well written too, and I learned a lot about the symbolism behind the drawing.  I had never heard of the idea that the human body could be seen as representing the whole world.  I find if fascinating that both pagans and Christians found this idea compelling. The Romans saw the Roman Empire as an extension of the body of the Emperor. The Christians reasoned that if God created Adam in his own image, and if God is perfect and fills the universe, than the human body must be a representation of the universe.  There is a lot more about the symbolism of the square and the circle, and also about the proportions of the perfect body. I think a lot of people who love the humanities would enjoy this book. (320 p. 2012)

The Siren of Sussex by Mimi Matthews

 Evelyn Maltravers needs to find a wealthy husband so she can lift the situation of her whole family. They had hoped her older and more beautiful sister would be their salvation, but she ended her first London season in scandal. Evelyn is not as beautiful, but she is an accomplished horsewoman, so she decides to try to make her mark by riding beautifully the latest fashion.  She enlists the assistance of an up-and-coming habit-maker, Ahmad Malik. He is half Indian and has struggled against prejudice  his whole life.  He hopes that, if he can make striking enough clothes for Evelyn, it will secure his place as a dressmaker for the aristocracy. As they became partners in what they hope is a mutually beneficial venture, they are forced to acknowledge their growing attraction for each other. Can Evelyn abandon her duty to her family to follow her heart?

This is the second book I have read by Ms Matthews, and I didn't like it as well as the first. The story line was fine, the characters were written well and there was some interesting historical detail.  What I didn't like was that is was very hormonal.  There was way too much time spent on describing how his touch made her belly feel, and how she felt when he had to adjust a fitting on her bodice. There was so much focus on the physical, that the reader feels that their attraction is merely physical.  I also didn't like that they constantly flaunted the rules of propriety for the time period and believed there wouldn't be any consequences. Somehow was no big deal that she stripped down to her knickers for a fitting without a female chaperone present. There are certain social rules in these books.  I don't know if they are based on reality or just a literary creation, but people who write in the Victorian romance genre are accepting those rules when they select the genre.  Ms Matthews ignored the convention in order to give the readers yet another scene of suppressed sexual tension. Granted, the couple never cross the line, but they were teetering on the brink the whole book. I debated with myself, but I finally removed Ms Matthews from my Clean Romance Writers list. It just isn't what I want to read. (432 p. 2022)