Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Murderbot is going to find out about its own past. It wants to return to the site of a massacre that he had a part in to find out what actually happened. Is it repeating its own mistakes? 

In order to get to the place in question, it hops aboard a ship that is doing a run without humans. While on board, Murderbot discovers that the ship is sentient and decides to trust it to help make him look less like a SecUnit and more like an augmented human. The ship, ART, also helps him find a job that will get him on planet so it won't be as suspicious for him to show up.

The job is security for a group that wants their data back from a big corp. But said big corp is being shady (as per usual) and it turns out the job may not be routine after all.

This is an interesting series and the worldbuilding is pretty amazing. Some parts dragged just a bit and I'm not sure about the fact that a robot seems to be feeling emotions at various points but still a good series. 

Four stars

This book came out May 8, 2018

Follows All Systems Red

Followed by Rogue Protocol

Borrowed as hard copy from the library

Opinions are my own

Fraudulently Ever After by A.R. Casella, Denise Grover Swank

Zach Littlefield, of the banking Littlefields, needs a date to his brother's engagement party and one night, while extremely drunk, decides to start interviewing women to be his fake date for dinner. 

Tina DiVirgilio needs money. Her third roommate moved out and she and Harry need someone else to move in so they can keep their place. While they both have friends and family who would be happy to help, neither is eager to rush in. Fake-dating Zach will kill two birds with one stone - it will also fulfill the terms of the Bad Luck Club's offshoot. See, she was cursed by an Italian grandmother when she was nineteen. She will be doomed to fulfill romance tropes but never find true love. And so far, that is proving true. Her "Greek Chorus" (three friends trying to help her out) want her to get out there and date someone with as many tropes as possible to try to get over her hurt and prove that the curse isn't real. Zach actually ticks off a number of tropes.

It's an interesting story that's really cute with the zaniness you'd expect from these writers and sets up a number of other possibilities (Tina's ex, the billionaire Rory who is probably going to be paired up with one of Willow's sisters who run a matchmaking agency, Willow, who is moving back to Asheville, the mysterious writer who was on Molly's book retreat who is now moving to Asheville to live with Bear, Zach's sister Kennedy who will have a great love but not any time soon etc. etc.

Tina is Dylan's little sister from Luck of the Draw.

Four stars

Follows Jingle Bell Hell

Followed by Matchmaking Mischief

Related to Luck of the Draw

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman, Barbara Rosenblat

Settling into her later life isn't something that Mrs. Pollifax wants to do. Yes, she's got full days with neighbors, learning judo and yoga, and attending her garden club. But it's all so distressingly... normal. So when she gets a letter and then shortly after a phone call, she is ready for an adventure. 

Mr.  Carstairs is sending her to Switzerland. To a health spa, no less. But why? Because somebody at that spa is connected to a rash of plutonium thefts. And they are close to enough plutonium to make an atom bomb and that would be a very bad thing for the world.

At the health spa are a number of interesting people including Robin Burke-Jones, a young man who dresses in the loud clothes of the day but seems to be at the spa for reasons of his own; Hafez, a boy who is just a little too anxious to make Emily his friend; a man in a wheelchair who is interested in the goings-on across the hall (Hafez's room); a young woman who has caught Robin's interest and goes hiking early every morning; Marcel, a waiter who might be more than he appears.

Even though Interpol is also on the scene, Emily is in more danger than she has been in many past books. 

A wonderful listen made even better by narrator Barbara Rosenblat. A little overwrought and maybe didn't age completely well but good for a day of data entry.

Four stars

This book came out in 1973

Follows The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax

Followed by Mrs. Pollifax on Safari

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

During her interviews at Stanford, Olive Smith met someone when she was having a reaction to contacts that were expired. She then attends the school for three years and, in that third year, accosts the local bad/super smart professor Adam Carlsen in the hallway. She is trying to prove to her friend Anh that she doesn't want to date Jeremy. Jeremy and Anh are apparently perfect for one another but Anh won't date him because of the girl code (BTW - go Anh!). 

Adam Carlsen is surprised by Olive's kiss but he eventually agrees to a fake dating situation so that his funds will be released (approximately 1/3 of his grants are being withheld because the advisors believe he might be leaving Standford soon.) If he is seen as being in a stable relationship with someone who is staying at Stanford, they might release his funds.

I loved that Hazelwood immediately addressed the professor/student relationship and showed why it wouldn't be an issue for Adam and Olive (and for another relationship later in the story). It was interesting being in a third person omniscient narrator who focused on Olive. We never really got a glimpse of what Adam was thinking but readers are probably able to discern his motives sooner than Olive is. This is a super cute story that maybe suffers form not being able to see Adam's side but I can' wait to read the next book in the series. 

Four stars

This book came out September 24, 2021

Followed by Love on the Brain

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Rules of the Game by Nora Roberts

Brooke Gordon bounced around foster homes growing up and has finally found a sense of family with her team at Thorton Productions, working her way up to director. She's happy making commercials and uses her skills from every previous job to be the best director she can. But now, she's having to work with a baseball player who will be modeling high-end clothes. Brooke knows nothing about baseball but, she she watches third baseman Parks Jones, she feels something. 

Parks is immediately attracted to the redhead watching his game. He immediately wrangles a date but is then offended to find out that she was watching his game for more reasons than to just see him. Luckily, the two figure out how to work together and eventually fall into an HEA.

Since this book was originally published in the 80s, Parks is definitely an alphahole but could have been worse. And I did appreciate the glimpse of them together after the marriage had started; that we know that a wedding is not necessarily always the start to a perfect HEA.

Three and a half stars

First published October 1st 1984

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes by Phoebe Robinson

Phoebe Robinson is a phenomenal writer who is tackling the hard topics with grace and humor. Does all of it hit? Maybe not but it's all entertaining. And I've learned about things that I never knew before like 4C hair and outside clothes. I guess I knew about outside clothes before but this was an even deeper dive into that topic as well as things like racism, living duringba pandemic and a host of other topics.

Four stars

This book came out September 28th 2021

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet

Cat lives in anonymity. She joined a circus eight years ago when one of the performers discovered her at 15, near starvation with blisters on her feet. Her past is hidden and she has been in hiding ever since. But now, someone seems hyper-focused on her. She's got many magical tools including visibility and the ability to absorb and return power but will it be enough to save her?

Griffen, the man who helped overthrow the current monarchy and set his sister up as queen, knows that a person like Cat, a Kingmaker, only comes along once every two hundred or so years. She will help to cement his family as the rulers of Sinta. Except that she doesn't want to help him. To be fair, he kidnaps her from the circus and holds her as a captive by means of a magic rope from which she cannot escape. Does it become Stolkholm syndrome? Maybe. But Cat comes to realize that Griffen and his team and his family are nothing like the rulers she left in Fisa. 

However, Cat is a powerful tool and she is too valuable for her family to let her go and there are going to be many battles before she will ever be able to relax, no matter how good Griffen is at avoiding magic.

There is some interesting world-building in this story with a lot of name dropping from Greek mythology. I'm curious as to how the series will build off of this and continue the relationships as the main characters seem to have gotten together in this book. 

Three and a half stars

This book came out August 2, 2016

Followed by Breath of Fire

Borrowed from Libby

Opinions are my own