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Book Review: THE SECRET SERVICE OF TEA AND TREASON by India Holton

| Jessica Crawford

The Secret Service of Tea and Treason by India Holton is a 334 page novel published by Berkley in 2023. It is third in the Dangerous Damsels series, but can be read as a standalone.

Genre:

Historical Romance, Cozy Fantasy, Humor

Tropes:

Rivals to lovers, fake marriage

Opening Line:

It was the best of dress shops, it was the worst of dress shops.

Synopsis:

Two rival spies must brave pirates, witches, and fake matrimony to save the Queen.

Known as Agent A, Alice is the top operative within the Agency of Undercover Note Takers, a secret government intelligence group that is fortunately better at espionage than at naming itself. From managing deceptive witches to bored aristocratic ladies, nothing is beyond Alice’s capabilities. She has a steely composure and a plan always up her sleeve (alongside a dagger and an embroidered handkerchief). So when rumors of an assassination plot begin to circulate, she’s immediately assigned to the case.

But she’s not working alone. Daniel Bixby, otherwise known as Agent B and Alice’s greatest rival, is given the most challenging undercover assignment of his life— pretending to be Alice’s husband. Together they will assume the identity of a married couple, infiltrate a pirate house party, and foil their unpatriotic plans.

Determined to remain consummate professionals, Alice and Daniel must ignore the growing attraction between them, especially since acting on it might prove more dangerous than their target.

My Thoughts:

THE SECRET SERVICE OF TEA AND TREASON by India Holton 🫖☕️🕵️🏴‍☠️🧙‍♀️💗

A rivals to lovers, fake marriage historical romance with fantasy elements and neurodiverse main characters? Yes, please!

My Books on Tap group (we meet at a different brewery twice a month and go around the table taking turns discussing whatever book we’re reading at the time) recently had a mystery book swap night. We each brought a book wrapped up to hide its identity, then wrote a few descriptors on the front. This was the book I picked (actually, I wound up picking two because the host brought extra in case someone came empty handed). It is the third in the Dangerous Damsels series, but worked perfectly well as a standalone. I could tell which of the characters here had wound up together in previous books in the series.

Alice and Daniel are the two top agents in an underground agency that trains “the help” (maids, housekeepers, butlers, footmen, valets) in espionage. They must join a party of pirates (who, by the way, use incantations to make their houses fly) posing as a married couple in order to thwart a conspiracy to assassinate Queen Victoria. What follows is a fun and absurd romp that prioritizes humor over a sensible plot. Chapters begin with amusingly modified literary quotes from the likes of Austen.

There are pretty explicit open door love scenes, and mild comedic violence.

One complaint that is exceedingly minor in the grand scheme of things: I counted four instances of characters’ mouths shrugging. Wut?

I had been wanting to try this author and am glad the book swap gave me the opportunity. It was a fun story that managed to be fairly swoonworthy to boot.

Book Review: SERVICE MODEL by Adrian Tchaikovsky

| Jessica Crawford

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a 376 page standalone novel published by Tor Books in 2024.

Genre:

Science Fiction, Dystopian

Opening Line:

On activation each morning Charles’ first duty was to check his master’s travel arrangements for the day.

My Thoughts:

This book is clever and funny, but because of how grim it is, I’m not sure how much I actually enjoyed it.

A robot who finds himself no longer of use goes searching for purpose in a dystopian future in which humanity has pretty much wiped itself out, and poorly thought out programming leaves scores of inefficient robots dedicated to performing useless tasks.

..he completed two contrasting analyses of the situation using his best human-facing sophistication and decided that it was simultaneously of enormous credit to [his] ongoing fidelity and professionalism, and also that it was terribly pointless and sad.

Society collapsed thanks to a combination of factors, including climate, economics, problems with infrastructure, etc. Plus with all of the automated services provided through AI, people’s skills were not needed, and yet they were still looked down on for being lazy and idle. As civilization itself was dying:

”…I estimate that 45% were unaware of the situation or considered it fake, owing to the precisely curated news sources that they limited themselves to, whilst a further 30% were aware but did not consider it their problem and 20% were aware and actively cheering on the fact or profiting from [it]…A final 5% seem likely to have been directly and deliberately contributing to the collapse…”

Uncharles teams up with The Wonk, who wants to learn the meaning of it all. There is a moral that a kind and ordered society should be the goal.

Smart and oftentimes extremely amusing writing, but the bleakness and the infuriating absurdity of all of the situations Uncharles comes across during is journey into the world kind of canceled out some of the joy these things offered.

There is no sexual content in this book, and the only violence involving humans happens off the page.

I wish to report an error in the way that everything works. Charles, it is not an error. It is how things are.

Book Review: SANDWICH by Catherine Newman

| Jessica Crawford

Sandwich by Catherine Newman is a 240 page standalone novel published in 2024 by Harper.

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Literary Fiction

Opening Line:

Picture this: a shorelined peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean.

Synopsis:

From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It’s one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.

My Thoughts:

Life is a seesaw and I am standing dead center, still and balanced. Living kids on one side, living parents on the other, Nicky here with me at the fulcrum. Don’t move a muscle, I think. But I will of course. You have to.

Holy nostalgia, Batman!

This book is equal parts heart-wrenching and hilarious, and wholly bittersweet.

The main POV character is 54 year old Rocky, who tells us of this year’s annual week-long vacation to Cape Cod with her family, in which she is sandwiched between young adult children and elderly parents. I could relate so much, if not in particulars then in vibes, to the fond recollecting of these trips of the past, when the children were younger and the parents in better health. My own children, my spouse and myself are about a decade behind in age than the family in this book, but we just recently had a similar weeklong beach vacation that has become a tradition, where my parents joined us for part of the time.

This part of the story, the joyful reminiscences of past family quality time as well as enjoying one another’s company in the present, made me want to hug this book (alas, I took it in via audio format). There was also a very funny streak, often provided by either Rocky’s adult children or else her own internal monologue.

Less heartwarming but still appreciated was all the commentary about the bodies of middle-aged women. I myself have not yet had the distinct displeasure of perimenopause, but I sure know it’s coming for me before too much longer, and it seemed to be addressed really well here. Rocky rails against the betrayals of her own body throughout her adult lifespan, and how it never feels like it belongs just to her. Her family often feels the brunt of her hormone-fueled rage, but she is self-aware enough to recognize that some of the problem is hers, not all theirs.

Then there were more difficult aspects of the story: pregnancy termination and loss, mental health struggles. And the troubling knowledge that one’s parents are drawing closer to the inevitable end.

There is plenty of talk about sex in this book; there is no violence (but see the above content warnings regarding pregnancy). The audio narrator was amazing, except only that I absolutely despised the voice she chose to use for Rocky’s daughter Willa – a twenty year old lesbian described as butch, but whose voice sounded like an especially whiny prepubescent child. I greatly enjoyed the character of Willa – her voice, not so much.

This book made me laugh out loud, it made me tear up, and it made me wish I was physically capable of hugging soundwaves, so in all I think that’s worth five stars. Perhaps I’ll also make a note to revisit this one when menopause starts knocking at my door…

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Book Review: BEAR by Julia Phillips

| Jessica Crawford

Bear by Julia Phillips is a 304 page standalone novel published by Hogarth in 2024.

Genre:

Literary fiction

Opening Line:

The ferry from Friday Harbor left fourteen times a day-fifteen on weekends-to loop around San Juan Channel’s scattered islands.

Synopsis:

A mesmerizing novel of two sisters on a Pacific Northwest island whose lives are upended by an unexpected visitor – a tale of family, obsession, and a mysterious creature in the woods, by the celebrated author of Disappearing Earth.

They were sisters and the would last past the end of time.

Sam and here sister, Elena, dream of another life. On the island off the coast of Washington where they were born and raised, they and their mother struggle to survive. Sam works long days on the ferry that delivers wealthy mainlanders to their vacation homes while Elena bartends at the local golf club, but even together they can’t earn enough to get by, stirring their frustration about the limits the shape of their existence.

Then one night on the boat, Sam spots a bear swimming the dark waters of the channel. Where is it going? What does it want? When the bear turns up by their home, Sam, terrified, is more convinced than ever that it’s time to leave the island. But Elena responds differently to the massive beast. Enchanted by its presence, she throws into doubt the plan to escape and puts their long-held dream in danger.

A story about the bonds of sisterhood and the mysteries of the animals that live among us – and within us – Bear is a propulsive, mythical, rich novel from one of the most acclaimed young writers in America.

My Thoughts:

This is slow-moving literary fiction ruined by infuriating characters that I had a hard time understanding.

Sam and Elena are adult sisters living paycheck to paycheck with their ailing mother an the island off the coast of Washington State. A bear swims to shore one day, likely on its way to Vancouver in search of a mate. One sister is unreasonably distraught by this all out of proportion to the situation, while the other thinks it’s the best thing that’s ever happened. These differing views throw a wrench into their relationship.

That’s it, that’s the story.

When they first see the bear outside of their home, the women freak out, hide out of sight of the windows, and cower. They are upset that it takes the officers from the sheriff’s department something like 20 minutes to arrive after they call. What exactly did they expect them to do? Then, even knowing that their sick mother is likely to die soon, Elena repeatedly tries to call her sister at work and sends her a text that says only, “CALL ME,” and it turns out the urgent message is just, “I saw the bear again.” …okay? And? Then the dumb dumb starts to feed the wild animal.

Sam is the main POV character, and she is just the worst. Not only does she continue to be absolutely terrified that this wild animal exists on the same island as her and cause problems with her sister because of this, she is unspeakably rude to several characters who are nothing but nice to her. One of them she feels justified in being nasty to just because his financial circumstances are more comfortable than hers. She asks another for help, and the woman offers help, and Sam’s response is, “Screw you!”

Then, after very little plot but a WHOLE LOT of angst, the ending feels emotionally manipulative.

There is sex in this book, not in any scenes that the reader is actually present for, but referred to in some fairly graphic terms. There is a bit of mild violence.

It’s clear I was irritated by some aspects of the book, but the writing itself was good, as was the audiobook narration (other than there often being audible loud intakes of breath before each line, which seems like an issue with the editing, not the voice work). I liked some of the message regarding the sisters’ differing views on their lives in general. But ultimately, for the aforementioned reasons, this one was a miss for me.

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Book Review: THE HEXOLOGISTS by Josiah Bancroft

| Jessica Crawford

The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft is a 318 page novel published by Orbit in 2024, and is the first entry in a new series.

Genre: Fantasy

Subgenres: Steampunk, cozy

Synopsis: The first book in a wildly inventive and mesmerizing new fantasy series from acclaimed author Josiah Bancroft where magical mysteries abound and only one team can solve The Hexologists.

The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case.

But when they are approached by the royal secretary and told the king pleads to be baked into a cake—going so far as to wedge himself inside a lit oven—the Wilbies soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that could very well see the nation turned on its head. Their effort to expose a royal secret buried under forty years of lies brings them nose to nose with a violent anti-royalist gang, avaricious ghouls, alchemists who draw their power from a hell-like dimension, and a bookish dragon who only occasionally eats people.

Armed with a love toughened by adversity and a stick of chalk that can conjure light from the darkness, hope from the hopeless, Iz and Warren Wilby are ready for a case that will test every spell, skill, and odd magical artifact in their considerable bag of tricks.

Opening Line:

“The king wishes to be cooked alive,” the royal secretary said, accepting the proffered saucer and cup and immediately setting both aside.

My Thoughts:

Josiah Bancroft is a criminally unsung fantasy author. His first novel, Senlin Ascends, was self-published and submitted to author Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. It made it to the final stage of the competition before losing to another novel, but had been reviewed so positively by the book bloggers that it gained its own following. It’s the first book in a now-completed tetralogy, The Books of Babel. The Hexlogists is the first book in his new series, and it is pretty darn great! A work of fantasy, this new world he has created has a healthy helping of steampunk elements, and some cozy factors to boot (although the stakes are certainly high).

It was bedlam, a hedonistic riot, or as Victor described it, “the usual whoop-de-do.”

Isolde and Warren Wilby are a very happily married couple known as The Hexologists, though it’s really only Is who practices the art, while War mostly cooks gourmet meals, acts as the brawn when called for, and takes over in social situations requiring the finesse that his wife lacks. Neither is much of a fan of the Crown and its policies, but find themselves hired to look into the matter of blackmail by someone claiming to be the illegitimate child of the king. Of course, there winds up being much, MUCH more going on behind the scenes, and our hexologists are in for quite the adventure.

“That is a Hex of Woe. Its bearer will suffer from insomnia, vertigo, tremors, impotence, styes, tinnitus, and galloping flatulence.”

Bancroft fleshes out this fantasy world with its politics and history of its magics: wizardry, alchemy, necromancy, and hexology. I admit to being a bit lost at times with the details of world building. But this was more than made up for with the fascinating characters, engaging adventures, and an abundance of lines that made me literally laugh out loud. I love how this author writes more unique fantasy rather than simply borrowing from what has become standard for the genre. The result of that combined with the humorous voice of his writing is simply delightful. It’s got the discipline of hex-casting, an incubus who can tell you the details about any corpse buried within its jurisdiction, a gargoyle Goddess of Grotesques, and a gourmand dragon inside what amounts to a bag of holding and who offers many moments of hilarity throughout the story.

He soothed her with walks and theater tickets and outings to bookshops, museums, and restaurants where he confounded the staff by pouring entire boats of gravy into a tattered carpetbag that vented fire like a steak flambé.

There is some mild violence in this book, and several fade to black scenes of our heroes getting randy, but nothing graphic in either regard. This book does not end on a cliffhanger, but just leaves the door open for further escapades for our intrepid duo. Reading this was a delight and I definitely plan on continuing in the series when the sequel is released. I cannot recommend this author enough to fans of the genre!

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Book Review: THE FULL MOON COFFEE SHOP by Mai Mochizuki, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

| Jessica Crawford

The Full Moon Coffee Shop is a Japanese novella in translation that was originally published in 2020.

From the synopsis: “In Japan, cats are a symbol of good luck. As the myth goes, if you are kind to them, they’ll one day return the favor. And if you are kind to the right cat, you might just find yourself invited to a mysterious coffee shop under a glittering Kyoto moon.”

This is a sweet, cozy story that also manages to be thought-provoking and inspiring.

A substitute teacher and the group of students she would walk home at the end of the school day once showed great kindness to some cats. Now, years later, the Full Moon Coffee Shop shows up for each of them. The coffee shop is run by speaking cats who can change into human form, and who are each named after a different astrological body. They choose specific food and drink tailored to each customer, and offer to read their star charts. In this way, the cats of the coffee shop are able to help each of these former schoolmates understand what is holding them back in life, and how to get back on course. There are lessons on being less hard on oneself and others, improving one’s state of mind and focus by making one’s surroundings more pleasant, admitting one’s true desires to oneself, and more. It’s a very nice story!

I am not 100% sure about the English translation of this book, as there were some idioms that miss the mark – although I suppose it’s possible these are expressions used in the UK and not the US and so I’m just not familiar with them (just as the book uses the British English term “anticlockwise” rather than the American English “counterclockwise”). Things like “plumping for a suit” , “looking pretty flash”, “splashing out on” the fancy dishes, and referring to singles (as in romantically unattached people) as singletons. I was a bit worried when the book opens with a male tortoiseshell cat, which, while not impossible, is unlikely (1 in 3000 tortoiseshell cats are male, and that’s because they are born with an extra X chromosome). Although I suppose it’s certainly not less likely that the cat will also be the physical form of a heavenly body come to bestow wisdom on people who have earned favors by being good to cats!

This is not the kind of book that will keep me thinking about it for a long time to come, but it IS the kind of book that gave me warm fuzzy feelings while also offering opportunities for introspection. 3.5 stars

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Book Review: COFFEE ADVENTURES: QUESTS FOR THE PERFECT CUPPA JOE

| Jessica Crawford

Coffee Adventures: Quests for the perfect cuppa joe is an anthology of short stories published by Raconteur Press in 2024, edited and illustrated by Cedar Sanderson. Authors include Jesse A. Barrett, J.L. Curtis, Kevin Harris, CE Hughes, Callie Johnson, Christopher Markman, Sherri Mines, J. Kenton Pierce, and Medron Pryde.

What a fun collection of short stories!

I read this anthology because a coworker and friend of mine wrote one of the entries. My understanding is that Raconteur Press is a small publishing operation that accepted submissions with an interesting prompt: choose one of the many blends of coffee served by neighboring business King Harv’s Imperial Coffee and write a story about how it came to be. I may not have the details exactly right, but it was something to that effect.

The results did not disappoint! Not only are there quality stories that were tightly edited here, the editor herself also apparently created custom art for each one, displayed as illustrations at the beginning of each entry. These were just wonderful.

These stories are mainly fantasy or science fiction. With a subject like coffee, many of them fit into the “cozy” subgenre, and most of them are adventurous in nature. Several were quite funny. I was very impressed!

It’s got hyena sorcerers, coffee liches, ghouls, deities, feral space girl scouts, geishas, and more. Including, of course, a whole lot of coffee. What’s not to love?

If you like short stories, fun, and, perhaps most importantly, coffee, you most definitely should give this a read.

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Book Review: HEADSHOT by Rita Bullwinkel

| Jessica Crawford

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel is a 224 page book published by Viking, and has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024.

Genre:

Literary Fiction

Synopsis:

An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors’ pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win.

Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivates young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching.

My Thoughts:

You know how your very favorite books are not necessarily the same as what you would call the best books you’ve ever read? You can really appreciate the writing and what an author has done with their work, but then there are those books that just make you feel All the Things and just the experience of reading them brings you joy?

I would say HEADSHOT is well written literary fiction that’s really special in what it says about its characters—each individual girl’s life, motivations, hang-ups, and sheer physicality—and yet it didn’t really do much for me personally.

There are several powerful lines for quoting. For instance:

The desire to please people is the desire to not be singular.

In this way, decades into the future, boxing will be for Andi Taylor a kind of failed identity marker—something she tried on and wore around but that she later realized wasn’t her, or didn’t fit with the rest of her life, or her as a boxer didn’t fit the way the world needed her to be in order for her to survive.

It is this ability of Kate Heffer’s to rewrite the reality of her own desires that will allow her to turn every narrative of her life into a self-fulfilling truth. She is, in this way, able to perceive and remember only those events that fit with her current perception of the world around her.

There are people who, just by looking at disasters, implicate themselves in the violence at hand. These people, the self-implicating people, are far less likely to be victors, but they are more emotionally intelligent, and more likely to be able to see details that others might miss.

But I just wasn’t that into the story, such as it is. I got less and less interested in it as I read on. It gives play by plays of each match in the Daughters of America boxing tournament, and detours into making statements about each girl and her life—but the story ends when the two day long tournament does, and so there is no real call to become invested in any of the characters. And then it just kind of ends with a whimper.

Oh well, not for me, but I still appreciated some things about it, like the structure and insights into the characters and basically life as a human in general.

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Book Review: A LETTER TO THE LUMINOUS DEEP by Sylvie Cathrall

| Jessica Crawford

A Letter to the Luminous Deep: The Sunken Archive: Book One by Sylvie Cathrall is a 400 page novel published in 2024 by Orbit.

Genre:

Cozy Fantasy Romance/Mystery

Opening Line:

Dear Scholar Clel,

Instead of reading further, I hope you will return this letter to its envelope or, better yet, crumple it into an abstract shape that might look quite at home on a coral reef.

Synopsis:

A charming fantasy set in an underwater world with magical academia and a heartwarming penpal romance, perfect for fans of  A Marvellous Light  and  Emily Wilde’s Encylopaedia of Faeries.

A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other.

Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.’s home, and she and Henerey vanish.

A year later, E.’s sister Sophy, and Henerey’s brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery, piecing together the letters, sketches and field notes left behind—and learn what their siblings’ disappearance might mean for life as they know it.

Inspired, immersive, and full of heart, this charming epistolary tale is an adventure into the depths of a magical sea and the limits of the imagination from a marvelous debut voice.

My Thoughts:

This epistolary novel is told through a formal academic yet delightful tone, and is full of fantastical mystery and cozy romance. There is queer and disability representation, which is great. Although there is a romance, there is no steamy content, and there is no violence. The overall story was intriguing, but the execution was kind of a miss for me.

This book is comprised entirely of letters, journal entries, excerpts, reports and such. And while the writing is amusing and did in fact have me laughing out loud at times, every character has the exact same voice. Everyone sounds absolutely indistinguishable from anyone else in their manner of speech…er, writing. Though the ideas behind the story are enchanting, with this voice problem and the relatively slow and plodding pace, it wound up being a bit boring to get through. I had to talk myself into picking it back up to read on.

And then of course it doesn’t really end because it turns out it is the first book in a planned (series? duology?), a fact I was not aware of until after I had it in my hands.

I generally don’t like comps because they so often disappoint, as reading is such a personal and unique experience for each reader, but I personally agree with the comparison between this book and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, tone-wise, although I myself enjoyed the latter much more.

Epistolary, cozy academic romance, and underwater sci-fi/fantasy mystery are all terms that appeal to me, but in the end the detractions outweighed the delights for me, and I don’t think I will bother picking up the sequel.

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