Butcher & Blackbird (CBR16 #14)

The first book in the Ruinous Love Trilogy came to my attention thanks to my fellow Cannonballers. I feel like I went from knowing absolutely nothing about this book or its author to being flooded with information about it and somehow still managing to go into the reading experience with extraordinarily little spoiled for me (something I hope to accomplish with my own review). Malin’s review from March was the linchpin as I don’t traditionally go in for dark romance but if Malin gave it her blessing, figured I could handle it. 

The elevator pitch for Butcher & Blackbird can be boiled down to two serial killers of serial killers have a meet cute over a dead body and proceed to form an unlikely friendship of sorts wherein they meet once a year to compete to murder another serial killer, and through that experience fall in love. But that does not capture, at all, the zany romcom qualities of this book. Nor does it capture the long list of trigger warnings on this book (I can hear you thinking that surely mentioning murder and serial killers several times in the description will clue you in. No, it does not, you must read the trigger warnings at the beginning of the book or the author’s website before embarking on this one because its A LOT.)  

A story like this succeeds or fails on its leads and Weaver does an excellent job of crafting two characters that leap off the page and allow you to understand their macabre hobbies. Sloane and Rowan are excellent creations (as are the supporting characters, who will reappear in the next two books in the series). Sloane Sutherland, known as the Orb Weaver to the FBI who cannot track or identify her, or understand the art she leaves behind, is closed off from the world having exactly one friend when we meet her and not in contact with her family. She is also brilliant, and paranoid for good reasons. Rowan is an award-winning chef by day and brutal murderer by night as well as being affable and outgoing and extremely loyal to his brothers. He’s a bit of a flirt and it takes Sloane literal years to understand that he is completely head over heels in love with her, and their competition has always been an excuse to spend time with her, when he knows that if he hadn’t suggested it at their first meeting he would never have seen her again.  

The steamy part of the book picks up about 60% of the way through and goes from zero to one hundred. I thought the balance between the sections, with the more gory, murder bits towards the beginning and end and the more traditional romance plotting in the middle (minus the pining which is all throughout the book) worked well, but I can see readers not vibing with Weaver’s choices (wanting more nitty-gritty of the murder planning or serial killer research, or maybe wanting the feelings of the romance to show up earlier instead of the physical attraction).  

Romancing Mister Bridgerton (CBR16 #13)

This is a re-read for me, put to the front of the line by a weeklong battle with a sinus infection and certain sectors of my social media intake being flooded with Bridgerton season three promos featuring Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton as Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton. As I am not made of stone, I’ve read all 8 main Bridgerton books, watched the first two seasons of the show (a lack of Netflix subscription prevented my viewing of the Queen Charlotte season), and have enjoyed Nicola a ton across several shows. Add to that having fond memories of this book I decided to give it a revisit before the new season finally arrives next month (well, half of it at least).  

Brief review: perfectly pleasant, still nice to see a lead like Penelope who is outside the traditional body types usually found at the center of a romance, particularly in 2002 when this was first published. Also, series readers know Penelope before the beginning of the book so there’s an investment in the characters from go.  

Longer review: my memory of this was more positive than my actual re-read experience. When I first read Romancing Mr. Bridgerton back in 2015 my review was rather skimpy. I talked about the interweaving storylines of Colin and Penelope and the quest to uncover Lady Whistledown, how Colin is battling with lacking a sense of purpose and how being once again in each other’s company regularly sparks in them both feelings they end up facing head on (which… do they? 2024 Katie is less sure than 2015 Katie specifically in that Colin just kind of keeps repeating it without unpacking it??). However, I didn’t mention that it is all a bit uneven and how the ending just sort of arrives without bothering to end the story (and really neither of the two epilogues help that).  But I still love all things Lady Danbury, I enjoyed the way the Lady Whistledown mystery is handled, and Penelope remains a favorite.  

Using and Curating Archaeological Collections (CBR16 #12)

When I have a work question, I often try to find a book for it. At work I was added to a project team for a landscape preservation project which includes some preliminary archaeological field work. My role was to provide additional historical background information for the archeologists and then provide guidance for how we wanted any finds curated for preservation. I felt ready for most of that work, but as we do not have anyone on staff with a background in archaeology, and our archaeological collections need improvements anyway, it was time to get a resource to feel more confident.  

Enter my life Using and Curating Archaeological Collections edited by S. Terry Childs and Mark S. Warner. The book is written from the point of view of archaeologists – specifically those who work in training new archaeologists – on the full life cycle of archaeological collections beyond the fieldwork, which is where people like me come in. The various chapter authors lay out a system in a perfect world in which trained archaeologists are with the collections throughout, but that just is not the case. Because this book was written more for my archaeology brethren there were plenty of sections which applied less to me primarily in the first section Valuing, Benefiting from, and Using Archaeological Collections, but it was a good refresher overall.  

The second section (and third) was where the biggest benefit was for me as it focused on tackling issues which included best practices for collections management planning, curation, determining ownership, preservation, management, orphan collections, and long-term management including possibilities for deaccessioning (basically… all the parts where my job comes in). What I took away from the totality here is that much like how I approach my other collections, these ones need to be holistically dealt with and do what you know how to do and do no harm to the rest. Problem mostly solved. Excellent job, book.  

Perma Red (CBR16 #11)

When I was looking for a historical fiction written by an indigenous author I knew right where to go because back in 2021 the Indigenous Reading Circle was featured in a Reading Women Podcast Reading Challenge, and I’ve been following them on Instagram ever since. This year they are highlighting native women in fiction and Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling, a complicated coming of age set on the Flathead Reservation in the 1940s, was their February selection. 

The story follows Louise White Elk as she approaches adulthood. Louise dreams of the freedom to live life on her own terms and an improved future for her family, especially her sister and the grandmother they live with following the death of their mother. But her life is dominated by the institutions that dictate what she is supposed to be doing at any given time. Louise’s dreams for herself also run against the desires of three men who have their own plans. Louise has been pursued by Baptiste Yellow Knife for years. He is feared by many, and Louise’s grandmother tells her to keep away from him and his family even as Louise feels drawn to him, knowing the dangers. Baptiste’s rival is his cousin, Charlie Kicking Woman who is caught between his duty and his preoccupation with Louise. And then there is Harvey Stoner, the white real estate mogul whose promises come at a cost. Perma Red was originally published in 2002 and won a slew of awards (American Book Award, 2003, Washington State Book Award, 2003, Spur Award for Best Novel of the West, 2003, WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction, 2003) but within a year of its publication the publisher was out of business and the novel was out of print. It was reissued in 2022 by Earling’s new publisher Milkweed, which is the edition I read.  

Earling is doing a lot in this book, and it is easy to see why it won the awards it did, and why it remained so firmly in literary conversation to call for its reissue. Earling, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, has transformed her family history – Louise is based in part on Earling’s aunt – into a narrative which explores all the ways in which a woman, especially a native woman, could be too much, and the dangers that come with being a woman at all, and the variety of perspectives that exist in any given moment. Louise’s adolescence becomes a pattern of flight, always moving away from something and towards something – or someone – else. But the someones are never healthy and that feeds the forward momentum of the story. One of the things that stood out to me about Perma Red is that the chapters shift POV between Charlie in the first person and Louise and Baptiste in the third. Even in this small way Earling reminds us of the agency removed from young, native women.  

Juniper Harvey and the Vanishing Kingdom (CBR16 #10)

As I mentioned in my review of The Carrefour Curse there are two tasks in the 2024 Read Harder Challenge that are specifically about middle grades books. Juniper Harvey and the Vanishing Kingdom is my selection for task 6: read a middle grade book with an LGBTQIA main character. Right off the bat, this is a good book, in fact Nina Varela can write better than most authors I’ve come across in the past year or more. I just wish Middle Grades was an audience demographic that worked for me more reliably as a reader, it is where I most clearly feel the “this book is not written for me” gap between children’s/YA and Adult literature. I think I would LOVE the adult version of this story, and even really enjoy the YA one. But the MG version left me forcing myself to pick it back up, which is why I eventually went ahead and granted myself a DNF for my birthday.  

What we have here is a retelling of the Pygmalion/Galatea myth set in a modern Floridian middle school. From Goodreads: “When Juniper Harvey’s family moves to the middle of nowhere in Florida, her entire life is uprooted. As if that’s not bad enough, she keeps having dreams about an ancient-looking temple, a terrifying attack, and a mysterious girl who turns into an ivory statue. One night after a disastrous school dance, Juniper draws a portrait of the girl from her dreams and thinks,  I wish you were here.  The next morning, she wakes up to find the girl in her room…pointing a sword at her throat! The unexpected visitor reveals herself as Galatea, a princess from a magical other world. One problem—her crown is missing, and she needs it in order to return home. Now, it’s up to Juniper to help find the crown, all while navigating a helpless crush on her new companion. And things go from bad to worse when a sinister force starts chasing after the crown too.” 

While I picked this one up based on its queer representation, it was the anxiety representation that really stood out to me. Both are incredibly well handled but the way Varela crafts Juniper to show her readers ways in which to deal when they are feeling overwhelmed felt truly excellent to me and something I would have loved to have seen more of when I was a much younger reader. So, if fantasy middle grades adventuring sounds like your kind of thing, I really hope you pick this up and have a better time than I did – because I’m like 98% sure I’m the problem in this book relationship. 😊  

The Art and Life of Hilma af Klint (CBR16 #9)

While perusing the Arlington Public Library’s List of Books You May Have Missed Last Year I spotted The Art and Life of Hilma af Klint written by Ylva Hillström and illustrated by Karin Eklund. I vaguely recognized af Klint’s name and popped it onto my list since a YA non-fiction was on my to read and this one struck my fancy, especially once I found out that Hillström is a curator at the Modern Art Museum in Stockholm. Woohoo for museum people writing books outside of the stuffy halls of academia! 

What I neglected to catch on to was that this was for younger readers than I thought. In fact, its Goodreads description opens with the fact that it is, in fact, a picture book. (Look at that, I went from not reviewing any I could remember in over 12 years to two in the same month!) What we get is a biography introducing readers to the life and art of Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), and she’s a bit of a standout character even if she never attained the notice she should have in her own lifetime since she began painting abstract art as early as 1906, before the accepted birth of modern abstract art with artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich.  

The Art and Life of Hilma af Klint aims to tell the whole story of af Klint, from her growing up years, to the loss of her sister and how that opened her up to the spiritual side of the world, to her time at art school and the women who she formed “The Five” based on their theosophy beliefs with and the art she created both before and after she decided to open herself up to what she described as instruction from the spirit world. I thought the work did a nice job of explaining her beliefs and how they impacted her work, but a less good job of explaining her queerness or even really acknowledging it outside of one illustration. But that said, Karin Eklund’s illustrations, as well as the reproductions of af Klint’s works, are great and will really help pull the reader in, as this is a much wordier picture book than Hardly Haunted.  

Hardly Haunted (CBR16 #8)

In January’s Cannonball Read Diversion there was a conversation about genres that you had never read before, and I thought to myself that there had to be at least one or two, but I was a little stumped. I didn’t really think about it again until it came time to review Hardly Haunted by Jessie Sima because without even having to look, I’m pretty sure I’ve never reviewed a picture book (and it’s been A LONG TIME since I read one either).  

Hardly Haunted is about a house that no one is living in, and it suspects that it may be haunted. There’s quite a bit of evidence, so House worries that no one will want to live there and that makes her sad because she really wants a family. So, she tries to suppress her squeaks, creaks, and groans. But… does she really want to? Does she instead want to just… be herself? Maybe she likes being noisy, and the right family for her will too. 

Sima imbues the book with a lighthearted, cartoony style with a delightfully cozy palette of colors that soothe. What we get in Hardly Haunted is a gentle, upbeat vibe. In being told from the point of view of House young readers (and less young readers) are encouraged to strengthen their empathy muscles. Each two page spread focuses on House, and its varying emotions about its circumstances. Its a picture book, so the text is sparse – just a couple sentences per page – and in service of the image, placed around the pages in the place most suited to Sima’s intent.  

I’ve read this one through a couple of times, and I smile every time. And not just because of the cute black cat. 

The Carrefour Curse (CBR16 #7)

There are two tasks in the Read Harder Challenge that are specifically about middle grades books (and others that are for a picture book, YA book by a trans author, and YA non-fiction) and works intended for readers on the younger than YA end of the spectrum are basically non-existent on my to read list so I had to do some research to find books to read. By and large, libraries can be relied upon to point you in good directions, so I went hunting for options and Arlington Public Library had a handy-dandy list of books that went under the radar in 2023 (yet another Read Harder Task) broken down into genres.  

One of those was middle grade books and as I was on the hunt for two, I went looking for titles I would be interested in. One that jumped out to me immediately was The Carrefour Curse by Dianne K. Salerni, which the author describes as being her homage to Dark Shadows and the Goodreads blurb describes as “The Addams Family meets The Westing Game in this exhilarating mystery about a modern magical dynasty trapped in the ruins of their once-grand, now-crumbling ancestral home.” Count me in, that should do nicely for middle grades horror. 

The Carrefour Curse juggles a few different horror tropes for its audience. We follow twelve-year-old Garnet Carrefour as she and her mother are summoned to the family home she has never seen as the patriarch’s health is failing. Her family is full of magic users in each of the earth elements, named for their area of specialization, but the family and house are encircled by death, which often comes in multiples. Garnet learns the family secret: her dying great-grandfather is stealing life power from others, lengthening his own life. But that isn’t the only problem Garnet discovers, unearthing an even deeper curse polluting the family’s magic and making people disappear.  

Middle grade horror is an interesting little nook in the literature universe since middle grade works do not include profanity, graphic violence, or sexuality, which tend to show up quite a lot in other horror genres. But they tend to focus on the characters’ friends, family, and immediate surroundings and there’s plenty of horror in interpersonal dynamics, especially once you throw in a magical family who is seemingly cursed. I enjoyed the magic of the Carrefour family and the complexities of how the curse and dangers are layered by Salerni. I think there was probably one or two too many characters to mentally juggle, but this was an enjoyable, while slightly spooky, read.  

Travel Research Books (CBR16 #4-6)

At work we’re in research mode, preparing for our new exhibition about travel in the 19^th century. Based on my interests and previous research avenues I got handed the Grand Tour and a piece of the cruise industry as my responsibilities. For the past few weeks, I’ve been scouring all my usual resource repositories, googling some very interesting UK museum websites, and our curator made sure I had some books to work my way through. They’ve been… a mixed bag.  

The Seafarers: The Atlantic Crossing by Melvin Maddocks was purchased primarily for its images and having worked my way through it I can verify that it is the area of its greatest worth. The publication year on this one, 1981, kind of gives away my issues with it – it is the kind of work that gives history books a bad name, but also shows just how far historical inquiry has come in the ways in which we discuss native populations and the enslaved. A book published now would have a very different tale to tell about Pocahontas and would include more than a few sentences regarding the transportation of enslaved populations across the Atlantic. I was able to get information I needed on the types of ships making the Atlantic crossing at different times, but I backed away from relying on the narrative for much else, preferring to get my information elsewhere.  

The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century by Jeremy Black was an improvement as far as content and history writing. But reading this one was still painful but for entirely different reasons. Two stars for good information, Black did the work to dig out primary source information held in a variety of collections and repositories to build out the story making this one of the first major works on the topic. But it gets no further stars from me for the unpleasantness of reading experience. A lot of it has to do with printer choices – paper, font size, indentations demarking quotes – but it also had a lot to do with authorial tone which mentally brought me back to my worst college lectures where my oppositional defiance wanted me to take a nap and wait the blowhard out (the professor, not the author). I worked my way through by treating it more as a reference than a narrative, but that was a workaround. But a workaround I would do again because the book does have some of the best information available and because of the author’s decision to have a defined Conclusion section at the end of each chapter I was able to easily hunt up answers to the various questions I had.  

Traveling Beyond Her Sphere: American Women on the Grand Tour 1814-1914 by Bess Beatty was the book that held my highest hopes and let me down the least (I know, faint praise). The people associated with our historic sites who travelled to Europe were American women in that century of time – perfect, just the book I needed. Like in The British Abroad, Beatty spent the time in repositories and unearthed a treasure trove of primary sources to fill out the narrative of the century between major European wars that led to the golden age of American Grand Tours and the reasons and ramifications of the women embarking on these Tours. While the narrative can feel a bit as though the author is just bouncing from account to account which can make it a sometimes difficult read to stick through there is a lot of really important information here. There were a few issues a stronger editorial read could have helped avoid, but all in all a book I’m glad we have for our reference shelves.  

How the Dukes Stole Christmas (CBR16 #3)

I had this collection picked out as my Christmas romance read a full year in advance. Then, I promptly didn’t read it, because that is how 2023 went. (Eventually my 2024 reviews will start without a lament about 2023, but this one isn’t it.) I love Tessa Dare books, particularly when I’m looking for something sweet and lighthearted. When checking her catalogue for a new to me book this past year I spotted this anthology from 2018 and put it on my list, zero questions asked.  

Meet Me in Mayfair by Tessa Dare 

Dare plays with some of the plot points of Meet Me in St. Louis, but this is its own story. Louisa Ward needs a Christmas miracle. She and her family have until new years to find a way to pay off a debt to the new Duke of Thorndale or they will have to leave the only home they’ve ever known. Her plan is to catch a suitor at her friend’s ball – only to be dragooned into taking her dance card so she can elope with the man she loves. Unfortunately, the card is chock full of unmarriageable men since Fiona had studiously been trying to not attract any other men’s attentions. The waltz is none other than Fiona’s distant cousin James, the Duke of Thorndale. Through a series of events and mostly truths Louisa and James spend the night getting to know each other around Mayfair, but can their newly blooming attraction and affection mean anything with all that hangs in the balance?  

I appreciated that Louisa is the one to change her mind, to grasp that while his decisions may be a bit shortsighted, James is making choices for the benefit of the people he is responsible for, forgetting that he is perhaps also responsible for the people who live and work in the properties he is preparing to sell. I also love that James isn’t afraid to re-evaluate with new information, while also not pretending to be someone he isn’t, or pretending that he doesn’t have the fears and worries he does. A really sweet story with steam primarily at the end.  

The Duke of Christmas Present by Sarah MacLean 

What if Belle had returned to Ebenezer Scrooge and given him the chance to reflect on his past and make a different choice before marrying another instead of the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future finding him later in life? That’s what Sarah MacLean is playing with in The Duke of Christmas Present. Jacqueline and Eben had been in love, but the pressures of saving his estates after his drunken father’s death made Eben pull away, always wanting to prove he was good enough. Jack pulls away eventually leaving him to travel with her aunt. The Duke of Christmas Present moves between the, ahem, present and the past letting the reader in on what happened 12 years ago and seeing if Eben and Jack can figure it out this time. It was a little more angsty than you might traditionally find in a holiday read (in that way it reminded me of my other second chance holiday read For Never & Always) but it worked for me, especially the grovel.   

Heiress Alone by Sophie Jordan 

If The Duke of Christmas Present was a look at The Christmas Carol if Scrooge had gotten his life sorted before becoming a big old, well, Scrooge than Heiress Alone is Home Alone but if the family member forgotten was an English heiress in the Scottish Highlands with brigands on the loose breaking into houses and estates. A snowstorm is ensured to block the pass meaning that Annis Bannister won’t be able to be retrieved by her apparently easily distractable family and she is trapped for the next three months in the Highlands. Her first night after being left the neighboring Duke (whom her family embarrassed themselves in front of rather spectacularly) arrives to rescue the servants from the marauding thieves thinking that they’re alone. Alas, he also has an heiress to look after. About half of the story is their journey back to his estate, and then the second half focuses on their time together as they deal with their emotions. I liked this one a lot more than I was expecting to, especially how the physical attraction is balanced with their emotional inner lives.  

Christmas in Central Park by Joanna Shupe 

A retelling of Christmas in Connecticut should absolutely have been my favorite of the bunch since the 1945 movie is one of my all-time favorites. From Goodreads: “Mrs. Rose Walker pens a popular advice/recipe column. No one knows Rose can’t even boil water. When her boss, Duke Havemeyer, insists she host a Christmas party, Rose must find a husband, an empty mansion, and a cook. But Rose fears her plan is failing—especially when Duke’s attentions make her want to step under the mistletoe with him.” See? Should’ve been like catnip for me. But… i struggled to sink into this one. I’m sure plenty of others loved it.