Cover Reveal: Death Rights by Shannon Knight

I’m very pleased today to welcome the Cover Reveals for Shannon Knights’s upcoming Death Rights. I’m more than pleased, I’m excited. No one (including me) has talked more on this site about covers than Shannon Knight. Also, I had the privilege of beta reading this book, and it’s a banger. Lastly, the cover is catchy.

I’ll show you this cover below, but first let’s learn a little bit about the book and author, shall we? It’ll just take a moment, and then we can all take a peak at the cover.

About the Book:

Grave Chronicles: Protect the Dead

Grave Cold introduces a world overrun by mutations where the dead remain in their bodies till a raven releases them. Each raven is a long-lived individual steeped in the culture of the time and place they originated. However, the District of Portland is using the dead as an energy source. Nylewulf, an Anglo-Saxon man who has spent centuries hiding from humanity, and Cait, a beautician who happens to be a necromancer, team up to protect the dead.

In Death Rights, Nyle and Cait have reached Angel’s Rest when a raven even older than Nyle appears. Lucius, known as the Kingmaker, is part of the council that regulates the elusive ravens. While DP aims to destroy every raven sanctuary in the district, Lucius unfurls his own plot. Once again, Nyle and Cait strive to stay alive and protect the dead. But survival alone doesn’t satisfy either of them. Will protecting the dead require them to take over the government?

Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9985251-0-0

Book Links:

Goodreads ~ Storygraph

 

About the Author

Shannon KnightShannon Knight is a fantasy, science fiction, and horror author living in the Pacific Northwest. She graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s in English. Winter Moon Press is her imprint for self-publication.

Author Links:

Website ~ Bluesky ~ Amazon ~ BookBub ~ Goodreads

and now…

The Cover

cover for Death Rights by Shannon Knight

The Complete Wrap-around (click the image to embiggen):
cover wrap for Death Rights by Shannon Knightl
Kudos to these fine folk for their work on this eye-grabber:
Cover design by Winter Moon Press
Cover photography by Kiselev Andrey Valerevich / Shutterstock.com
Cover font Boycott by Ryoichi Tsunekawa / Flat-it
Cover font Shortcut by Eduardo Recife / Misprinted Type
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A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett: There’s Not More than A Drop of this to Complain About (so I won’t)

Cover of A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett A Drop of Corruption

by Robert Jackson Bennett

DETAILS:
Series: Shadow of the Leviathan, #2
Publisher: Del Rey
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Format: eARC
Length: 480 pgs.
Read Date: March 17-21, 2025
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

What’s A Drop of Corruption About?

Dinios Kol arrives (as is his custom) in the canton of Yarrowdale, ahead of his boss, Ana Dolabra. They’ve been assigned to investigate the disappearance of a Treasury officer. This officer—and the rest of the Treasury delegation—is in Yarrowdale to negotiate with the King the final steps of Yarrowdale fully joining the Empire once and for all.

Right now, Yarrowdale is (rightly or wrongly) considered a backwater territory, valuable for one thing only—it’s a place that the leviathans do not travel to, so their corpses can be moved there and harvested for the copious near-magical substances used by the Empire. (incidentally, I found this whole aspect just tremendously cool. I won’t say more than that, but if we only got a novella about this part, I’d have been satisfied). This is the only place where this is safely done, so it’s hard to understate the strategic importance of Yarrowdale.

So one of the Empire’s chief negotiators going missing is no small thing—so Dolabra is assigned to find him.

Not at all shockingly (to any reader), the corpse of the officer is quickly located once Kol arrives. Its condition raises eyebrows and concerns—and that’s just the beginning, the more they investigate the circumstances around this killing the less sense things make, and the greatness of the mind behind it is seen. Dolabra is excited by the challenge, while everyone around her becomes more and more apprehensive with each discovery or conclusion she makes.

I won’t go on much beyond this—I’d love to summarize the whole book for you, but why? More victims are found, more questions are raised, the stakes keep climbing higher, and the implications for the future of the Empire are great.

Dolabra and Kol

When I talked about The Tainted Cup, I didn’t really talk about the primary characters. I hesitate to start now because I’m going to have a hard time stopping. But let me try to dip my toe into it.

Ana Dolabra is a brilliant investigator for the Empire—being sent to the trickiest investigations and given almost unlimited authority to get the answers she seeks. Due to some physical (and psychological) limitations—and the fact that she has zero interpersonal skills (and that’s being generous)—she requires a deputy to handle most of the actual investigating, bringing her the evidence and testimony that she needs to solve the crimes.

Which is where Dinios Kol comes in. He’s been altered to have a perfect memory—sights, sounds, smells, conversation…you name it, he remembers it all (even if he doesn’t want to). So he’s the perfect assistant for someone who will not interact with people of her own volition. There are jobs he’d rather perform—and places he’d rather perform them. But his family needs money to pay medical debt, and this is the surest way for him to accomplish that. He escapes into drink, drugs (I think it’s more like tobacco than anything, but I’m prepared to be shown that I’m wrong), and sex as often as he can. But is reliable when the chips are down—he has to be.

Ana Dolabra is very much in the Nero Wolfe mold—purposefully so. But she breaks the mold in all the right ways—her reasons for relying on someone else to interact with the outside world are different and less self-imposed. Her ego is as large (I wasn’t sure that was possible), and she takes some of these crimes as a personal attack on her and her genius (like Wolfe occasionally does). But she relishes the challenge—and talks openly about enjoying this case compared to the boring murders and whatnot she’s solved recently. She has a strange relationship with eating so that sometimes she sounds like her antecedent and other times the complete opposite.

Most people will not care about this (and I assure you, that paragraph could be longer)—but I’m incapable of reading any section featuring Dolabra without pausing to contrast her to Wolfe. She never comes out bad in these comparisons—just different in a creative way.

Her Archie Goodwin, Dinios Kol, can be compared and contrasted in the same way. I started to say he’s less like Archie, and I really want to. But I can really think of one major difference—what drives them. Kol’s motivation for the work (at this point, anyway, it may be shifting toward the end) is different. So he behaves with a little less loyalty. This makes him more interesting and makes up for his lack of humor. Ah, look there—I found another notable difference. Kol is far too serious to really be an Archie, but I wouldn’t want to change a thing about him.

Building on the Worldbuilding

In The Tainted Cup, Bennett introduced us to a fascinating and complex world of kaiju-esque monsters, magic-feeling science, and a massive empire that’s keeping humanity alive. it was both awesome and strange. In A Drop of Corruption, it’s almost as if Bennet tells the reader, “So you’ve seen the typical in this world, but you ain’t ready for this.” As strange and terrible as we thought things were…ha.

We get to see new augmentations, we get to see how outsiders (or semi-outsiders) regard the Empire, we learn a whole lot of history about the Empire, the monsters, the science behind the augmentations, and so much more. I’m having trouble expressing it all.

In both books so far Bennett can bring the unbelievable and indescribable to life. Din will start a sentence by saying something like, “Words cannot express ___” or “It’s too incredible to explain” or something like that—and then will falteringly describe it in such a way that the reader comes away with a pretty good idea of what Din saw. Even when he’s not calling his shot like that, item after item, phenomenon after phenomenon, creature after creature that really shouldn’t make sense when written about comes through with a level of detail that leads the reader to think they’re imagining what Bennett imagined.

Sure….it’s likely that no two readers will have similar mental images. But that’s not important—you’ll think you do.

The Author’s Note

The Author’s Note (largely an Acknowledgement section, but a little bit more) is a must-read. I don’t know if you’re prone to reading them—particularly if they feel more like an Acknowledgment than anything else. But make an exception for this one. It’s worth your time.

So, what did I think about A Drop of Corruption?

I was blown away by The Tainted Cup, and so I was apprehensive about this one—could it live up to it? I’m pleased to say that it did. I very likely enjoyed this much more—because I was ready for the strangeness and could just let it build on what the prior book did.

I feel bad saying I had fun reading about all the trauma that these victims went through, but I really did. Kol and Dolabra—and Kol’s new local acquaintances are just so well-conceived and vividly drawn, that it’d be harder to be disinterested than captivated.

The mystery kept me guessing until the end (except for the time I thought I’d figured it out, and I was very wrong). There was even a point where I wrote in my notes, “Could this be a redder herring?” and it was anything but. I won’t go into details so you can be fooled like I was, but man… The only thing I like more than the smug satisfaction of figuring out a mystery before a brilliant detective is an author who can fool me into that smugness only to pull the rug out from under me. Not to get elitist or anything, but a fantasy writer should be worse at this than a mystery writer. Bennett didn’t get that memo.

I do think you could read this book without the first in the series—but don’t do that to yourself. Buy a copy of this now (or get on your Library’s waitlist), but get The Tainted Cup at the same time. If I’m right about where this series is going (or even almost close to right), you’re going to want to be ready for it. This is just dynamite.

This book deserves more compliments from me—but who has the time? (not the guy who meant to post this a week or so ago). A great mystery novel, a great fantasy novel, with characters that you’d want to read about even if the plots weren’t worth the time or trouble.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Random House Publishing Group – Del Rey, Random House Worlds, Inklore via NetGalley in exchange for this post which contains my honest opinion—thanks to both for this.


5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
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WWW Wednesday—April 2, 2025

Poking my head up long enough to post this–hopefully first of two for today.

WWW Wednesdays Logo

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:

What are you currently reading?

Cover of The Price of Power by Michael Michel Cover of Baby City by Freida McFadden & Kelly Stoddard
The Price of Power
by Michael Michel
Baby City
by Freida McFadden & Kelly Stoddard, read by Phillipa Miller

Last night I pulled the “well, just one more chapter and then I’ll get to work” move three times with Price of Power, and that’s a testimony to my self-control. I easily could’ve kept going.

I’m not sure how Baby City ended up on my holds list, but I’m going to trust past me…for a little while, anyway.

What did you recently finish reading?

Cover of Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler Cover of A Little History of Music by Robert Philip
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
A Little History of Music
by Robert Philip, read by Zeb Soanes

I’ve been thinking almost non-stop about Butler’s book for days now. I’m not sure when I’m going to stop.

I learned a little about music from Philip, almost enough to justify the time spent listening.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Cover of My Documents by Kevin Nguyen Cover of Happy Jack and the Scary-Ass Book of Doom by Rich Partain
My Documents
by Kevin Nguyen
Happy Jack and the Scary-Ass Book of Doom
by Rich Partain, read by JP Adams

The ARC for Nguyen’s novel looked like a chilling look at what could easily go wrong in the U.S. when I requested it. Now, it just looks chilling. I may regret picking this up.

On the other hand, Partain’s book looks like a fun antidote to all the serious things I’ve been reading and listening to lately.

What’s on your nightstand (or wherever you keep your current reads)?

Saturday Miscellany—3/29/25

Quiet week here, too quiet, I know. Here’s hoping the next week will be calmer and more productive. I’ve got some good stuff due/lined up for the next few days. Be sure to come back and check it out.

Odds ‘n ends about books and reading that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
bullet Flannery at 100—and Forever: O’Connor’s work, fiction and not, is Catholic, gothic, Southern, and timeless.—something tells me that I’m going to be reading, and suggesting, a lot of O’Connor this year. Maybe I should try to squeeze in some re-reads, too.
bullet Why Is Everyone Reading ‘Lonesome Dove,’ an 858-page Western From 1985?—I didn’t realize this was a thing. But it’s pretty cool that it is.
bullet Interview: Miles Joyner—this interview over on Crime Fiction Lover sparked my interst in Joyner. Maybe it will do the same for you.
bullet Every Hunger Games book gets blunter about the messages fans keep missing: Collins’ narrative is also about how the series itself is received—Now I kind of want to go read the new one.
bullet The 50 Best Norwegian Harry Potter Character Names EXPLAINED—Have you, like me, never wondered how the Norwegian translator of Potter changed the names of major characters? This video will convince you that you should’ve.
bullet Considering the cosy turn in SFF: who gets to be comforted?
bullet Narratess’ Indie Sale is back April 5-7. Start counting your pennies now.

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
bullet Dorothy Parker Drank Here by Ellen Meister

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi—It’s hard to describe how much I’m looking forward to this…the Moon suddenly turns into cheese. “For some it’s an opportunity. For others it’s a moment to question their faith: In God, in science, in everything. Still others try to keep the world running in the face of absurdity and uncertainty. And then there are the billions looking to the sky and wondering how a thing that was always just there is now… something absolutely impossible.”
bullet When Shadows Fall by Neil Lancaster—DS Max Craigie wrangles with a serial killer
bullet Bazaar by Miles Joyner—assassins, the Dark Web, Washington D.C., security contractors…sounds like a great ingredient list for a thriller.
bullet Space Brooms! by A.G. Rodriguez—”A fun, sci-fi romp where custodian – or space broom – Johnny Gomez teams up with smugglers and is thrust into an unforgettable adventure.”

I love people who read. I think it screams humility. When someone reads, they are essentially admitting they want more, that the world is not enough for them. They want more knowledge, more experience. Whatever this life is, they want more of it. - Nicholas Browne

WWW Wednesday—March 26, 2025

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,

Is not supposed to be a motto or mission statement or anything like that. But I sure seem to have adopted it as such. But I have got some solid reading in.

WWW Wednesdays Logo

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:

What are you currently reading?

Cover of Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler Cover of Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
Serpent & Dove
by Shelby Mahurin, read by Holter Graham & Saskia Maarleveld

I’ve only read 30 or so pages of Butler’s book–it’s not going to be a feel-good read.

By the time this posts, I’ll be an hour or so into Serpent & Dove, hopefully I’m enjoying myself.

What did you recently finish reading?

Cover of Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto Cover of Food for Thought by Alton Brown
Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)
by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Food for Thought: Essays and Ruminations
by Alton Brown

These two were simply delightful, everything I’d hoped they’d be, and maybe more. Vera Wong’s second investigation is heartwarming, sweet, and endearing. Brown’s essays were…I’d say “chef’s kiss,” but he had this great rant about the overuse of “Chef.”

What do you think you’ll read next?

 

Cover of The Price of Power by Michael Michel Cover of A Little History of Music by Robert Philip
The Price of Power
by Michael Michel
A Little History of Music
by Robert Philip, read by Zeb Soanes

The plan is to talk a lot about The Price of Power in the next week or so, buckle up for it! (step 1: reading the thing)

A Little History of Music is back in this spot–and will almost certainly not be delayed again.

How are you wrapping up the month?

HC Chats with Paul Regnier about Monster Therapist and the Warlock’s Citadel and some other stuff

HC sat down with literary local Paul Regnier (https://www.pauljregnier.com/) to talk about his books, influences, and things of that nature.

Some of the books we mentioned were:
Paul’s books/writing:
Space Drifters trilogy
Luke and Bandit cozy mysteries
Bard Tidings
Monster Therapist and the Warlock’s Citadel
Almost the Chosen One Substack by Paul Regnier

Other books we mentioned/discussed:
The Sword of Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks
Magic Kingdom for Sale–Sold! by Terry Brooks
MythAdventures by Robert Asprin series
Mark of the Fool by J.M. Clarke
Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz by Garth Nix
The Unraveling of Emlyn DuLaine by Lindsay A. Franklin
I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle


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REPOST: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto: Come Meet Your New Favorite Senior Citizen Sleuth

Some Real Life™ stuff has come up this week, interfering with my writing plans. So, let me dust this off. I’m a little over halfway through the sequel which is just as delightful. But that’s for another day.


Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for MurderersVera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

by Jesse Q. Sutanto

DETAILS:
Publisher: Berkley Books
Publication Date: March 14, 2023
Format: eARC
Length: 352 pg.
Read Date: March 2-7, 2023

What’s Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers About?

I’m not sure that I can answer this question without just recapping the entire novel—but without the charm and warmth.

Just Try…

How much time do you have?

It Publishes Today, You Need to Get Something Posted. Just Give Us the Setup

Okay, okay, I’ll attempt it—but I really want to spend the next hour just regurgitating the whole thing.

Vera Wong is an older Chinese woman, the owner of a small tea shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It’s dark, dingy, and doesn’t get much in the way of customers. She has one regular that she can count on to stop in early in the morning, and then spends most of the rest of the day waiting for someone else to walk in and order. Typically in vain. But it’s her life—she has nothing else to do with her time—her husband is dead, and her son is busy with work. So busy that he rarely has time to visit—or acknowledge all of the super-helpful advice she gives him to succeed at work and/or to find a wife. This doesn’t stop her from texting or calling him frequently to offer the advice, it should be noted.

Then one day, she comes down the stairs from her apartment above the shop to discover a dead body in the middle of the floor. She has little faith that the police will be able to tell her who killed the man, so she decides to discover the identity of the killer for them. How hard can it be? She’s watched plenty of procedurals, is smart, and (unlike Sherlock Holmes) is a suspicious Chinese mother. The murderer doesn’t stand a chance.

So she helps herself to a little bit of the evidence before the police arrive so that she can hunt for the murderer. It’ll be a good change of pace for her.

She sets a trap for the murderer and ends up with four good suspects, it’ll just take her some time to figure out who killed him and why. In the meantime, she sees at least three younger people that need some guidance to get their lives in order—she decides to take that on along with her murder investigation.

Vera

I’d like to spend a few pages talking about Vera—I’m certain that if you ask me in December, she’s still going to be one of my favorite characters of 2023.

She is so human—such a mass of contradictions and differing impulses. The fact that at her, um, advanced age she’s able to chart a new course for her life, to let people in, and adapt gives me a little hope.

But it’s her spirit, her way of looking at the world, and not backing down that’s really inspiring.

Once she’s done with these characters, I could use a grandmother like this.

Be Careful

Vera knows her tea, she spends a lot of time and energy on it—certain that she can make someone just the right kind of tea for whatever they’re facing to help them through the day. If you can make it through a chapter or two (especially in the early chapters) without needing a cup of your own, I’d like to know how.

But other than needing to take the time to boil water and steep your tea, that’s not a big deal (unless you’re inspired to go shopping for more teas, which can get expensive—and can distract you from your reading). However, Vera also spends a lot of time cooking for her new friends and suspects. And she ends up spending more time cooking than making tea.

This is where you need to be careful—if you’re not, you could find yourself putting on a few pounds before the killer is identified. Sutanto’s descriptions of Vera’s creations—and the way everyone responds to them—are so vivid, so enticing, they can send you to your pantry for a snack—or to your food delivery app of choice to order some Chinese food.

I’m not saying that you should avoid these portions of the book—just be prepared so you can fight temptation (or have a handy justification to indulge yourself, if that’s more your preference).

So, what did I think about Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers?

By the time I got halfway through the opening paragraph, I’d started coming up with a list of people to recommend this book to. There was something about the voice that just jumped off of the page (er, screen) and said, “You’re going to have fun with this.” And I absolutely did—but there was more to it than that, being around these characters felt comfortable. I just wanted to spend time in their presence—like Stars Hollow, CT; the locker room of AFC Richmond; the Parks and Rec Department of Pawnee, IN; the Jigsaw Room of Cooper’s Chase retirement village; or Knight’s Bookstore in Abbi Waxman’s L.A. I don’t remember the last time that I read a cozy mystery that was so worthy of the title “Cozy.”

Yes, I wanted to figure it out. Yes, I wanted to know what happened to the characters and wanted closure for this period in their lives. But I read as slowly as I could because I wanted to linger.

It’s not just Vera that creates that feeling—it’s the other characters’ reactions to her, as well as their relationships with each other. Yes, she is undeniably the center of this little world, but it wouldn’t work without the others.

There’s a lot of gentle humor and heart—that’s what fills this charming work. But that’s not all of it—there are laugh-out-loud moments, as well, and real emotions. There’s a budding romance, a rekindled friendship, family ties, and a lot of people finding the confidence to step out into something new—or into something they’ve tried before and have been scared to try again. The found family that’s created along the way makes all of that possible—particularly the last part—the mutual support (in various forms) and encouragement from the others enable the others to make those steps.

I don’t want to give the impression that this book is all sunshine, flowers, and good times. There are portions of this that are hard to get through, sure—there’s a suspicious death, criminal behavior—at the very least the actions of a scoundrel—heartbreak and a great deal of loneliness and despair. But Sutanto doesn’t leave us there for long—she grounds the book in it, but provides a way forward—through grit, determination, and the help of others.

The murder investigation was fine—probably more than fine, actually. It was a clever little story, with plenty of good suspects and nice twists. But the book isn’t all that interested in the murder investigation, really. It’s just an excuse for these people to come together and start interacting. Vera herself doesn’t really want any of her suspects to be guilty—she’s too busy meddling in their lives to improve them (in selfless acts of assistance only, she’d hurry to tell you). But she keeps plugging away at her little list of suspects because it’s something she’s started—and wouldn’t it be exciting to actually find a murderer? (even if it’s someone she doesn’t want to get into any kind of trouble).

I talk about mysteries more than anything else here, and the fact that I’d started wrapping up the post without addressing the mystery part of this book says a lot to me. It’s the driving force behind the plot and the instigating incident—but again—it’s secondary to the rest of the storylines. Still, most readers will have a hard time finding sympathy for the murdered man, and more than once you’ll likely wonder if it’d really be that bad if no one figures out who did it. You probably won’t feel the way you usually do when a murder is solved when the culprit is named, either.

There’s just so much to commend about this book—and so little to quibble with—I’m on the verge of repeating myself and/or overhyping this thing (but boy howdy, does it deserve a lot of hype!). So I’m just going to leave it with this—go get your hands on a copy, brew yourself a nice pot of tea (I promise you’re going to want tea), and lose yourself in this book for a few hours.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Berkley Publishing Group via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.


4 1/2 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.

Saturday Miscellany—3/22/2025

Odds ‘n ends about books and reading that caught my eye this week. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
bullet EveryLibrary launched SaveIMLS.org—to take action and make your voice heard about the recent Executive Order targeting the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), amongst others.
bullet The Best Villains in Literature Bracket: And The Winner Is…—not really a surprise, but the worst of the worst (or the best of the worst?) has been named.
bullet The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem: Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI. Search through them here.
bullet How an American Radical Reinvented Back-Yard Gardening: Ruth Stout didn’t plow, dig, water, or weed—and now her “no-work” method is everywhere. But behind her secret to the perfect garden lay other secrets.—this barely qualifies for this post, but they do talk about her books a bit–and there’s discussion of her more famous (at least then) brother, Rex Stout. And you all know I’ll reflexively put anything about Rex Stout here.
bullet Tell Me a Differently Shaped Story: SFF That Plays With Form: If not traditional narrative, why book shaped?—(I’m with Templeton re: House of Leaves)
bullet Tackling the TBR: Strategies for Managing Your “To Be Read” List—It was just a day or two ago that I learned that TBR’s can be managed and not just cowered under. The things Science can do these days…
bullet Why I Like The Term ‘Trad Fantasy’—a quick take from Peat Long
bullet I’m kinda done with being treated like an idiot by authors—I expect a lot of us will agree with the notion behind The Orangutan Librarian’s post. I just wonder how many of us all would agree about the authors who do it?

To help talk about backlist titles (and just for fun), What Was I Talking About 10 Years Ago Week?
bullet The Witches of Echo Park by Amber Benson
bullet I mentioned the releases of: The Stolen Ones by Owen Laukkanen; The Deception Artist by Fayette Fox; The Last Days of Video: A Novel by Jeremy Hawkins; and Less Than Hero by S. G. Browne. I only read The Stolen Ones, which remains one of the more chilling books I’ve read in a decade or so.

This Week’s New Releases that I’m Excited About and/or You’ll Probably See Here Soon:
bullet The Library by Gigi Pandian—Tempest Raj and her pals are back for another fun locked-room mystery. I talked about it (hopefully enthusiastically) a day or two ago.
bullet Friends Helping Friends by Patrick Hoffman— “A young man must infiltrate his own family’s white nationalist group, or go to prison himself… Part crime novel, part portrait of friendship, extremism, and inherited trauma, celebrated novelist Patrick Hoffman is at his brilliant best in these pages. Bunny never wanted any trouble. So how the hell did he end up at a white supremacist compound in rural Colorado?”
Welcome to the Lands of Luxury by Jon Tilton—escaping from their home on a (literal) trash pile is one thing, but adjusting to life in a super-affluent world brings a whole new set of challenges in this sequel.

Sometimes I think to myself, 'Drop the book and get stuff done!' Then I laugh and turn the page.
Image credit: Grammarly

The Library Game by Gigi Pandian: Never Ask “What’s the Worst That Can Happen?”

This is a week and a half late or so, mostly because I kept trying to go on and on and on about aspects of the book that I should leave for Pandian to tell you. My apologies for the delay to the nice people at Minotaur who offered me the book and have been nudging me to say something about it.


Cover of The Library Game by Gigi PandianThe Library Game

by Gigi Pandian

DETAILS:
Series: Secret Staircase Mysteries, #4
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: March 18, 2025
Format: eARC
Length: 320
Read Date: March 5-8, 2025
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What’s The Library Game About?

The project that Secret Staircase Construction is about to wrap up has a couple of distinctive elements (on top of the sliding bookshelves, escape room, etc.)—their client is dead, and his death is not a mystery at all. Most people might not consider that very distinctive, but those people haven’t read a mystery novel featuring Tempest Raj.

This client was an aficionado of classic mysteries—okay, aficionado is an understatement—he was borderline obsessed and had the money to indulge that obsession. As his death neared, he decided to turn most of his house into a library (leaving room for an apartment for his librarian nephew), stocked with his own collection. This sounds like a dream come true for most of my readers, right?

He hired Secret Staircase to give it just the right look and touch, even turning part of it into an Escape Room. Sadly, he died before it was completed, leaving his nephew to bring his vision to life.

While the library is being finished—and waiting for official approval to make it a public entity—there’s a neighborhood festival. To get some promotion for the library (and to be good neighbors), they’ve hired some local actors to stage a little performance.

During a dress rehearsal for that performance, something goes wrong—one of the actors disappears (I’m glossing over a lot here), so they try again the next day—in the midst of that… I don’t even know how to gloss over this. It’s like they all chanted “Macbeth!” while walking under a ladder and crossing a black cat’s path or something—so many things go wrong, and a body is discovered. Tempest’s magician friend, Sanjay, appears to be the prime suspect—although the rest of the actors and workers aren’t above suspicion either.

Well, more than one person floats the idea of the deceased client’s ghost being behind it all. So, there are plenty of suspects, however unlikely.

Tempest (and her friend group and family) has her work cut out for her if she’s going to clear Sanjay’s name, find the killer, and get the Library set for the festival.

The Sense of Fun

Yes, this is a murder mystery. Livelihoods, wrongful convictions, and more are on the line. But there is a strong sense of fun to this book. Our amateur sleuths are a group of friends who’ve been down this road before (three times to be exact)—in one way or another.

They like the challenge, they enjoy mysteries, illusions, and everything else going on here—and they can’t help but enjoy this in some way—and this comes out in their interactions with each other.

There’s a sense of play here as they work through this, some running jokes, and so on. I’m not saying that books two and three were absent fun, but it was played down a bit because of everything else. This is as fun as the first book—and maybe more so, because the relationships are better settled and Tempest isn’t under that cloud anymore.

Beyond the greater sense of fun than we’ve had for a bit, there’s the cozy and warm feeling you get from reading a solid found family/friend group (in the midst of a flesh and blood family), these people like each other. It’s hard to beat that feeling.

All of that serves as a bonus to a clever mystery.

So, what did I think about The Library Game?

I was fairly convinced that the previous book in the series, The Raven Thief was going to be the last one as it wrapped up a three-book arc, serving as a nice trilogy. I was so happy to be wrong—I wanted more time with Tempest and her friends—especially Ivy (I’d take a spin-off book full of her essays on locked-room mysteries) and Abra. Not to mention the fun of imagining Ash’s culinary offerings.

Beyond the characters, Pandian knows how to deliver a contemporary locked-room crime and how to keep the tension building while keeping the whole book entertaining. I need to make time for her backlist soon to see how these books compare with her earlier offerings.

I’d like Ernest Cunningham (or Ivy, I guess) to weigh in on Pandian’s books because I’m not entirely certain that she plays fair with her clues and solutions. Particularly in this case. But that’s just to satisfy a mental itch, because I really don’t care—I thought the solution to this and the reveal were pulled off satisfyingly well.

This would make a good jumping-on point for someone new to this world and is a must-read for people who enjoyed any of the previous three. It’s a clever book, a smart mystery, filled with good friends and warm feelings. Who doesn’t want that?

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley in exchange for this post which contains my honest opinion—thanks to both for this.


4 Stars

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WWW Wednesday—March 19, 2025

Hey, I managed to get this up! (didn’t get anything else done today, but let’s accentuate the positive)

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This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Seems easy enough, right? Let’s take a peek at this week’s answers:

What are you currently reading?

Cover of A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett Cover of Food for Thought by Alton Brown
A Drop of Corruption
by Robert Jackson Bennett
Food for Thought: Essays and Ruminations
by Alton Brown

Bennett is knocking it out of the park again. I may be enjoying this one more than last year’s, but that’s just because I know what to expect from these characters. I certainly don’t know what to expect from this world, which is even stranger this time out. I got to the part of the book where a character utters the title today, which is always worth a cheer. It wasn’t used the way I initially took it, either, which is perfectly satisfying.

Speaking of satisfying…Alton Brown reading this essay collection is my front-runner for Audiobook of the Year. It’s just ridiculously entertaining.

What did you recently finish reading?

Cover of Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames Cover of That's Not Right by Scott Meyer
Bloody Rose
by Nicholas Eames
That’s Not Right
by Scott Meyer, read by Luke Daniels

As I said last week, Bloody Rose is not Kings of the Wyld. While that’s somewhat disappointing, but it’s good that it wasn’t. I put off reading this for far too long, I’m so glad I got to dip back into this world.

I opened the “wrong” audiobook last week, so I’ll have to circle back to A Little History of Music, after I clear off a few Library reserves (why do they insist on becoming available in stacks?). Instead, I had some quirky fun with Scott Meyer. This was not his best, but not his worst either (and his worst, it should be noted, is still plenty of fun). Solid fun, some really good lines, and (as you expect) some great performances from Luke Daniels.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Cover of Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto Cover of Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin
Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)
by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Serpent & Dove
by Shelby Mahurin, read by Holter Graham & Saskia Maarleveld

Do I know what this return to the world of Vera Wong is about? Nope–and I don’t care. I just want to watch her meddle some more.

Serpent & Dove is one of those I’m listening to based on a recommendation (name withheld in case I don’t like it, no need to shame the lad). I’m really not sure this is my bag, but I hope to be surprised.

What’s keeping you up at night/filling your day?

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