All Systems Red by Martha Wells

I had heard about this book from many different podcasts and they all raved. It is for a good reason. This is a really interesting story to introduce a new series. 

Self-named Murderbot is a security android supplied by the "Company." His (using this pronoun for ease -- the audible narrator was a male) job is to protect the humans on any mission. But he has secretly learned how to circumvent the required updates from the Company and is more unfettered than anyone knows. This could be a problem but most of his free time is spent downloading old TV shows and watching them. He still does his job but is doing his best to stay under the radar.

Unfortunately, there is something going terribly wrong with his current mission. Even though all explorations are supposed to be approved by the Company, someone has arrived on the planet and killed off all of the researchers in the other facility. Murderbot doesn't necessarily connect with the humans on this trip but he doesn't want to have his memory erased and besides, after that other mission went so horribly wrong, he doesn't want to be disassembled.

I'm not as in love with the series as other people have been but I am enjoying the world building and liked the story.

Four stars

This novella came out May, 2017

Followed by Artificial Condition

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor by Ally Carter

April is an orphan. She doesn't know much about her past except for the key hanging around her neck. Her mother never told her what it was for but she's sure that all will be explained when her mother returns.  A trip to the local museum finally gives her a clue when she sees the crest on her key in the Winterborne exhibit. Always good at noticing things, April figures out how to get back into the museum that night. She doesn't mean to set the exhibit on fire. But when she wakes up in the aftermath, there is a mysterious woman, Ms. Nelson, who is taking her to a new group home. But first, they pick up two other children, the nearly silent Violet and her apparently self-appointed protector, Tim. When they get to the home, it is Winterborne house and there are two other children already in residence.The first is Sadie, an inventor, the daughter of scientists who used to work for the Winterborne family. The second is Colin who started living in the house after his mother posed as the fiancee of the long-lost Winterborne heir, Gabriel.

Everyone in Gabriel's family died in a boating accident except for his uncle. The fame and the wealth became too much for him and he disappeared ten years ago and is presumed dead. But mysterious happenings in the house make April wonder if the truth is something different.

There is enough time for some character development in this book but it is mostly world building. This might be a very interesting series as Carter has started a story but there is much room to grow.

Four stars

This book came out March 3rd, 2020

Followed by Winterborne Home for Mayhem and Mystery

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor by Shaenon K. Garrity

Haley is obsessed with gothic novels (Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, etc.) It's to the point where she dresses like she's a princess and has been banned from using the gothic novels for book reports. If she lived in a castle, life would probably be just fine. 

One night, when she's walking home from school, she sees a man drowning. She doesn't quite mean to fall in the river but she does manage to rescue him. But the other side of the river isn't the town she left. It's another reality. One that she knows immediately from all of her reading down to and including guessing that there are three brothers who live there.

But in this alternate universe, life is not as easy as it would be in some of Haley's books. It is threatened by a neighboring universe of bile that wants to take over the small universe and then Cecily's own. 

This book is amazing in the fact that it builds an entire world while trying to adhere to many of the tropes of the gothic novels. Oldest brother Laurence is the steadfast heir. Cuthbert, the youngest, is feckless having debts despite never having gambled. Montague, the one Haley rescued, is... a middle child. 

This book is charming, self-referential in the best ways, and often funny. I love that the prototypical heroine umbrella came in useful and that this adventure Haley figured out which role she truly would play in a gothic novel.

Four and a half stars

This book comes out July 20th, 2021

ARC kindly provided by Simon and Schuster's Children Publishing, and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Any Shape or Form by Elizabeth Daly

Henry Gamadge has been invited to a party next door. He's maybe not particularly interested but his cousin encourages him to go. And it is there that he meets a colorful cast of characters. He knows the Drummonds, nearby neighbors but the young Malcolm siblings are unknown to him. And they are equally unknown to his neighbor's aunt, even though she was their step aunt. And there is the added complication that their father left his money to her for the extent of her lifetime. So they are potentially wealthy, but only on expectations. Until then, they live off Vega's largess and the allowance their father left them. 
Vega herself is a colorful lady. Her name has only recently been chosen as she has joined a cult that worships the sun. She even gifted the home owner, her nephew Johnny, with a sculpture that was possibly originally Apollo but now is rather faded and missing whatever it once held. 
There are undercurrents all around the party but Gamadge doesn't expect Vega to be shot, while he's standing next to her in the garden no less. The perpetrator could have been anyone as they had all split up previously. 
An unexpected guest shows up and then she is also murdered. The police are looking at the wrong person and it will be up to Gamadge to set them right.
I am not sure that this was really a fairly clued story but it was a good one. Recommended by Classic Mysteries podcast.

Four stars

This book came out in 1945

Follows The Book of the Dead

Followed by Somewhere in the House

Kindle ebook

Opinions are my own

Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

I love the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories. She is wise and kind and always helps kids and parents in inventive
ways. Kid's a show-off? Make it so that he turns invisible so no one watches him. Got a crybaby? Tears that will flood a house.

This one is good but a little more preachy than the others in the series. 

Three stars

This book came out 1955

Follows Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle

Maybell Parrish doesn't really like the real world so she spends a lot of time in her Alternate Universe (AU). But the real world has finally come up with some good luck. Well, sort of. Her great aunt, the one with whom Maybell spent a wonderful summer when she was eleven, has died. And she left Sarah everything. At least that's what Maybell is told to begin with. However, she learns to her horror that she is actually a co-inheritor. The other is a man whose face she knows. It's the face her (now erstwhile) friend used to catfish Maybell. Used to being quiet and now faced with a man that she thought was fictional (and largely is thanks to her imagination), Maybell has a decision. Does she give up the first good thing in her life or does she work toward a brighter future?

I think that Hogle may just not be an author I enjoy. Maybell spent a lot of time in her imagination and I'm not sure how it really ended up serving the story. It meant that we got less time with Wesley who seemed like a good guy with his own issues that might have been interesting to explore. I was also having trouble figuring out how time flowed in this novel and some of that was the fact that these two didn't ever interact with anyone else in the story except for the great aunt's caretaker who was more of a plot point than a true character. 

Three stars

This book came out April 6th, 2021

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

How Sweet It Is by Dylan Newton

A fun and frothy book, this was a perfect book to bring to the beach and just enjoy the ride as Kate and Drake meet and begin their HEA. Some good points about celebrity and assumptions. I would've liked a little less showboating on Drake's part and to have seen a little bit more of his family because their ties seem awesome and a bit more of Kate's family and their eventual acceptance of her career choice. I am hopeful that his two brothers and Kate's bestie, publishing agent Imani, might be some sequel-bait. 

Kate Sweet has one goal in life, to win an EVPLEX, a major award given to Event Planners. But, while she has some great renown for her weddings, wedding planner don't usually win. So when her best friend calls with a proposition for Kate to fill in and complete a horror writer's book launch, she's hesitant but decides to take a chance. 

However, the first meeting with said publisher goes horribly with a series of events that culminate in Kate being on top of him when Imani walks in... with the director who is optioning Drake's book (but also helped Drake's ex publish a tell-all about him). 

Drake is bemused by this woman who comes in and plans the exact wrong kind of event for his book launch. In fact, he fires both her and Imani. But then he realizes that he's being a jerk and rehires her. And then he realizes that she is actually pretty good at her job and that he just needs to slow down and listen because she and he might be creating something pretty grand together.

Four stars

This book comes out July 13th, 2021

ARC kindly provided by Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and NetGalley

Opinions are my own