Author: Liberty Hardy

Painter first turned up on my radar with Old in Art School, her memoir about, well, going to art school in middle age. This book collects Painter’s critical thinking and personal writing from her decades-long career in one place. Painter has been documenting her interests, research, and opinions about people, politics, race, and the Black experience in America for half a century and is a smart, incisive writer, no matter her subject. The book also includes original works of art throughout by the aptly named Painter. It’s a great book to enjoy at your leisure, or read cover to cover in one sitting.

Backlist bump: Old In Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over by Nell Painter

Stacey Lee has been a Book Riot favorite since her first YA novel, Under a Painted Sky. Lee’s books are consistently great, and she’s an auto-buy author for me, for sure. She excels at historical fiction, and this is no exception. Kill Her Twice is a noir set in 1930s Chinatown. When Hollywood starlet Lulu Wong is found dead by her former classmates, they think it’s suspicious. Lulu may have been out of their orbit, living a supposedly glamorous life of fame, but they knew the real her. And something isn’t right. So Lulu’s friends take it upon themselves to find out what happened to her, and how she ended back up in Chinatown. But if their instincts are correct, and Lulu was murdered, that means a killer is still out there. And they are putting a big target on their backs by seeking answers.

Backlist bump: The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

This is the sequel to one of my favorite vampire novels of the last few years! The first book was Night’s Edge, and it’s a great short and nasty vampire tale, with a very 1980s-vampire novel feel. I’m not going to spoil anything here by telling you about First Light, but I will tell you a bit about the first book. It involves a young woman named Mia. In this world, vampires are real, and they are registered and regulated by the government. Meaning, they’re locked away. Mia’s mother Izzy was turned into a vampire when Mia was young, and she has grown up helping her hide mother her vampirism from the world. But this means that Mia never left home, never had friends over, never got to have a life of her own. And her mother isn’t even that grateful, as her condition makes her frequently aggressive and unpleasant to live with. Then, Mia meets a young woman who has her questioning her dedication to her mother and her own lack of a social life. Can Mia find happiness out in the daylight, or will she spend her life at her mother’s side in darkness?

Backlist bump: Night’s Edge by Liz Kerin

This week, I am reading Those Opulent Days by Jacquie Pham and We Came to Welcome You by Vincent Tirado. I am two seasons into rewatching The X-Files for the twelfth time. And by “watch” I mean “leave on in the background while I do work.” It has been a few years since I rewatched it, and I feel like I have a new appreciation of it. The last few times, I have been very critical of it. But while it certainly has its flaws, this time I am struck anew by how creepy and messed up it is. (Related: Did you know that before he took on college students cheating Las Vegas and the creation of Facebook, Ben Mezrich wrote an X-Files tie-in novel?) The song stuck in my head this week is “My Home is the Sea” by Bonnie Prince Billy. And here is your weekly cat picture: Look at this little orange soda jerk. (Related: Do people even know what a soda jerk is anymore?)

That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty

“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.”—Diane Duane

This book is only 126 pages, but like everything Sofia Samatar writes, it’s so wise and compelling. It’s set on a mining ship in space, where a boy has spent his life enslaved in the bowels of the ship as a member of the Chained. His life is changed when he is brought to the ship’s university, where he befriends a professor who has worked her whole career to get out from under the stigma of having been born to the Chained. It’s a look at literal and figurative bonds holding people back in their lives and a society that enables the subjugation of others in favor of their own advancement. Everything Samatar writes is brilliant, and this is no exception. (Content warnings include enslavement, classism, and racism.)

Backlist bump: A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar

This crime novel was a bestseller in Japan when it was released in 2017, and is now in English for the first time. And it’s based on a real case! Rika Machida is a journalist who is tired of her job, working in a newsroom with all men, where she is often harassed and overlooked. That is, when her ideas aren’t being stolen. Then the case of a gourmet cook with expensive taste accused of murdering her benefactors catches Rika’s eye. She’s disgusted by how the news and social media talk about Manako Kajii, who is not thought of as conventionally attractive. People wonder how “someone like her” could have attracted these men in the first place. Rika wishes to expose this side of Manako’s story, but Manako has refused all interviews with journalists. But when Rika approaches it from a different angle and instead writes to Manako about food and cooking, she is able to strike up a correspondence. And Rika discovers she has more in common with Manako, an alleged serial killer, than she expected. (CW includes sexism, misogyny, body shaming, fatphobia, disordered eating, loss of a loved one, stalking. violence, injury, murder, and death.)

And for my last pick in this very different trio of new releases: a memoir written (and drawn) for middle graders! When Cooke was young, he experienced a lot of anxiety, and as he got older, his anxious thoughts sometimes made it hard for him to accomplish tasks, make friends, or attend sleepovers. For many years, he worried about almost everything, from basic concerns to wildly improbable outcomes. (It doesn’t help that he doom-scrolls on the internet.) But then he was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And as he learns about the condition, he begins to find ways to calm his worries and his obtrusive, anxious thoughts. It’s an informative look at things so many kids go through in school, such as bullying and fear of embarrassment. But it’s also an examination of a condition so often overlooked in young people, and how to get help. (CW include OCD/anxiety, disordered eating, and bullying.)

Backlist bump: Jawbreaker by Christina Wyman

This week, I am reading Swift River by Essie Chambers and The Cats of Silver Crescent by Kaela Noel. (That makes three books with cats in the title mentioned in this newsletter!) I finally started watching The Good Lord Bird miniseries, which I have been meaning to do for years since I love the book. (Wait, am I just drawn to books with animals mentioned in the title???) The song stuck in my head this week is “Anthem for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene. And here is your weekly cat picture: Throwback to these three knuckleheads posing for their indie rock album cover.

That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty

“I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.” —E.B. White

Note: This blurb discusses miscarriages. As if being a mother isn’t frightening enough, Beams delivers a horror-tinged historical novel about an expectant mother and the hospital where she convalesces during her pregnancy. It’s 1948, and Irene Willard is pregnant for her sixth time, after five miscarriages, and desperate to have a baby. So for this pregnancy, she turns to an unorthodox hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband and wife duo of doctors. The doctors believe they have a way to stop miscarriages from happening, and at this point, Irene is willing to try anything. Her husband leaves her in what they hope are the doctors’ capable hands, where she is poked and prodded and monitored. Cut off from her husband and the rest of the world, Irene befriends the other expectant patients, and in her travels around the hospital grounds, finds a secret garden that seems to have an almost supernatural energy that calls to her. As the doctors’ treatments for the expectant mothers start to go sideways, Irene investigates the garden more and discovers it’s a place that may hold both her deepest desires and fears in its walls. It’s like Shirley Jackson wrote The Secret Garden for adults! (And maybe a book to read at another time if you’re currently expecting, because it is INTENSE.) (CW include sexism, gore, body horror, miscarriage, pregnancy trauma, and death.)

Backlist bump: We Show What We Have Learned & Other Stories by Clare Beams

This is a fun romantic fantasy that draws from Pacific Island mythology. Hanalei of Tamarind has been forced to live a life in exile after her father commits a serious crime. But after years of studying the seadragons as she battles homesickness, she thinks she has found a way to return to Tamarind. It involves a seadragon egg, which they call dragonfruit, and which is said to be magic. Meanwhile, back at Tamarind, Sam is the remaining heir of the island’s royalty, but only women can rule, so he must find a queen very soon, or get a dragonfruit to cure his ill mother. When old pals Hanalei and Sam are reunited after many years apart, it looks like they may be able to solve both of their problems by working together. They can’t fight their attraction, but they will have to fight the dangerous people out there trying to get a dragonfruit of their own. It’s an exciting YA romantasy in a lush setting with seadragons — what more could you ask for? (CW include animal cruelty and death, violence and injury, illness and loss of a loved one, racism, slavery, and xenophobia.)

Backlist bump: Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier

And this last book, I have not read, but I am so excited to get it. I wanted to mention it because I feel like more readers in the States need to know about Scarlett Thomas. I have always thought she writes such unusual novels, which I have enjoyed, and I was happy to see that she was referred to as “one of the UK’s most interesting authors” by Kirkus Reviews. This is being billed as a modern gothic about a couple whose honeymoon on a tiny Greek island goes wrong. From the first day they arrived, things at the hotel where Evelyn and Richard are staying haven’t been working out. Evelyn clashes with the hotel’s owner, who seems to be putting the moves on Richard, and people keep telling them about “the sleepwalkers,” a couple who recently drowned on the island. Things are only going to get worse for the couple when a storm separates them and they’ll have to face the secrets of their past in order to keep their new marriage together. I really don’t know what’s going on in the book even though I have read the description, but I am HERE FOR IT. Thomas plus suspense and secrets on a Greek island sounds likeThe Magus meets Rocky Horror to me. My body is ready.

Backlist bump: The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas

This week, I am reading Graveyard Shift by M. L. Rio (a new book from the author of If We Were Villains, which I know so many of you loved) and While We Were Burning by Sara Koffi. I also watched the second and third episodes of Elsbeth. (Having almost two months between episodes one and two was reeediculous.) It’s very formulaic and silly, but that is exactly what my brain needs right now. Plus, I love Carrie Preston, from way back when she was in My Best Friend’s Wedding. The song stuck in my head this week is “You’re Somebody Else” by flora cash. And here is your weekly cat picture: Millay is not impressed that her brothers are behind her on the couch. She thinks they are — wait for it — copycats.

That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty

“We don’t leave the children we were. We simply grow around them like a tree will, in the end, grow around a bicycle that’s been left against them…” —Susan Fletcher, The Night in Question

This week: I’m currently reading Model Home by Rivers Solomon and The Sexual Life of Flowers by Simon Klein. Things have been bananas around here in Maine still, so I haven’t had time to start watching a new show yet, but I have a good feeling that this spring is going to yield great things. It was such a mild winter here this year, aside from the random snowstorm we had last weekend. The warm air and little critters everywhere are giving me new life. Moving on: The song stuck in my head (and now in yours) is “Prince Ali” from Aladdin. (You’re welcome!) And here’s a cat photo: Zevon is putting his best foot forward.*

*I don’t actually know if that’s his best foot. He has four of them, and they’re all pretty cute.

Tatum is a young woman living a quiet, satisfying life in Chile with her partner. But her happy existence gets shaken up when the past comes knocking. A famous author she knew from college, whom she met after writing a fan letter, has been accused of sexual misconduct. Tatum had spent ten years in his orbit. And now reporters want to know about her relationship with the author. Tatum must not only fight to keep her past from damaging her present and her future, but she begins to examine that decade and the power dynamic she had with the author. Was she in control of what was happening? Was it wholly appropriate? And how can she get past this scandal and back to her own life?

Backlist bump: Complicit by Winnie M Li

This is an intense novel with a Slenderman-type monster at its nougat center. When Faye was a child, she attacked her babysitter, supposedly at the behest of the Kingman, a monster she read about on the internet. Now 23, Faye is missing, gone without a trace and leaving behind her child. Her mother, Sylvia, will have to revisit the pain and horror of that incident 13 years ago in order to find her. As Sylvia falls down a rabbit hole looking into the Kingman, and what internet lore might mean to Faye’s disappearance, she’ll have to face ugly realities about parenting, the bonds of love, and their limits. Will she find Faye before she reaches her breaking point? Because, just maybe, the Kingman might be real. (Also, this might be my favorite cover of the year.)

Backlist bump: Penpal by Dathan Auerbach

Speaking of parents with big problems: this is a “he said, she…is missing” mystery. By all accounts, Simon and Nina are a great couple. So when they go on vacation in Vermont, and only Simon returns, it’s a shock. Nina’s parents don’t think Simon’s explanation for her disappearance makes sense. Simon’s parents might not either, but they’ve got a lot of money to pay for expensive lawyers. The lawyers turn Nina’s disappearance, and soon her life, into a media circus. As Nina’s parents fight to find out what happened to their daughter, they are close to being pulled under a wave of lies and obstruction. In a public carnival of armchair detectives and Simon stans, it shows them just how much the truth doesn’t matter. Not when you don’t have money.

Backlist bump: Before and After by Rosellen Brown

This week, I am reading Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist by Jasmin Graham and Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey. I didn’t get to any TV this week (except for the Celtics, of course), but I hope to watch a movie tonight. I’m thinking either Poor Things or Killers of the Flower Moon. I really want to watch All of Us Strangers, because I heart Andrew Scott, but I don’t think I’m ready. I hear that it’s devastating. The song stuck in my head this week is “Here is a Heart” by Jenny Owen Youngs. And here is your weekly cat picture: I’m creeping while Zevon’s sleeping.

That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty

“When mountains are formed, they are forced up by deep geographical forces over millennia—the top is ages older than the bottom. Ascending, in many ways, is less like moving upward through space than it is like moving backward in time.”—Nicholas Binge, Ascension

Chris Bohjalian has been consistently delivering intense, emotionally wrenching novels for many years now. This is his most fascinating, IMO, possibly because of its unusual main character. Crissy Dowling is a semi-star on the Strip in Las Vegas. She performs a cabaret show each night as her doppelganger, Princess Diana, and is adored by everyone around and mildly famous. But Crissy’s life is less glamorous out of the spotlight, with a secret married lover, an Adderall habit, and disordered eating problems. When the owner of the casino is murdered, Crissy gets drawn into a case involving organized crime and ruthless killers. The details in this novel are great. I haven’t been to Vegas in almost two decades, but I can still visualize it, and the feel of the city in the book is spot on. And how Bohjalian discusses Crissy turning herself into not only someone else, but one of the most beloved figures in the world, is so interesting. (Content warnings include violence, gore, murder, loss of a loved one, disordered eating, body dysmorphia, substance use and abuse, infidelity, sexual harassment, child abuse, suicide, and animal cruelty.)

Backlist bump: The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani

This is one of the darkest, most heartbreaking books I have read in a long time. It’s also one of the most darkly humorous books I have read. It’s set in New Hampshire during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Lacey is a young teen whose hippie parents run a daycare out of their home. She’s struggling with popularity and thinks she’s hiding the fact that she is attracted to girls. But when her parents are arrested and charged with assaulting many children in Satanic rituals, her life is turned upside down. While her parents are held without bail, Lacey’s glamorous, foul-mouthed older sister returns home to help care for her and get them ready for their parents’ trial. They are pretty much on their own. The ridiculousness of the charges doesn’t seem to keep most of the town from thinking they are true. Lacey and her sister are hounded by the media, and everything feels like it’s hopeless.

And this is only the beginning of Lacey’s horrible troubles, as more tragedy strikes and she must deal with being a teenager in a system that doesn’t care about children, where most of the adults don’t have her best interests in mind. Lacey is so achingly real, with her conflicts about her attraction to women, her desire to see justice for her parents, her fears, and her bravery. She has to make hard choices in a world where these things are supposed to be handled by adults. I won’t lie; despite its humor and whiplash-fast pace, Rainbow Black is a tough read at times, because of the subject matter. The time period is often reflected in the characters’ language, which is realistic for those years and serves to remind the reader how casually people used slurs and offensive terms back then. (Some people still do, but not as out in the open as they used to.) It also contains a lot of difficult subject matter. But it’s an incredible look at mass hysteria, hate, and fear, and even a hopeful story of resilience and love, and a cutting commentary on our present. (Content warnings for just about everything you can think of, including racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia and deadnaming, child sexual assault, an adult/minor relationship, gore, grief, addiction, animal death, and suicide.)

Backlist bump: Strange Truth by Maggie Thrash

After that last pick, I thought I would end it with something much, much lighter. I haven’t read this book yet, but I really enjoyed the first two novels in the series, Under Lock & Skeleton Key and The Raven Thief. They’re about Tempest Raj, who returns home after her career in magic meets a disastrous end. She winds up working for her family’s construction company, which specializes in building secret staircases, hidden rooms, trap doors, etc. (I want all of these things in my house!) But, of course, she also winds up puzzling (get it?) out mysteries. The mysteries are fun, light, and clever. I also wanted to mention that Pandian has a couple of other fun cozy mystery series for fans of the genre. One is a fantasy series, The Accidental Alchemists, and the other, the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt series, is about a historian who goes on Indiana Jones-type adventures. I hope to get to this one really soon!

Backlist bump: The Accidental Alchemist by Gigi Pandian

This week, I am reading The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins and So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison. We still haven’t had a chance to sit down and start a new show yet, but I am leaning towards the adaptation of The Good Lord Bird by James McBride. I looooove the book, and I love David Morse, and Steve Zahn, and Daveed Diggs. Honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t watched it yet. The song stuck in my head this week is “Eyes” by Rogue Wave. And here is your weekly cat picture: Farrokh is all tuckered out after a long week of being a cat.

That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty

“People say life is the thing, but I prefer reading.”—Logan Pearsall Smith

We are such big fans here at Book Riot of Johnson’s debut, The Space Between Worlds! This new novel is set outside the city of the first novel. Hang on for another smart sci-fi thrill ride! It follows Scales, a mechanic who is also the only trusted member of the Emperor’s crew. The Emperor rules over the rough desert town of Ashtown, showing no mercy, and using Scales to help keep the peace. But everything Scales thought she knew about their community and the neighboring city is in doubt when people start being murdered. And even though Scale is a witness to one of the killings, she’s pretty sure the killer is invisible. Honestly, I should have led with invisible killer. How can you pass that up???

Backlist bump: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Chung’s last book, Sea Change, was one of the great recent novels to feature the hot trend of octopuses in fiction. This is a collection of achingly real but also sometimes unusual stories about survival, change, nature, and womanhood, with a dash of Korean mythology and culture. There’s a woman who reconnects with her mother after she gets pregnant, a fox demon hellbent on avenging her sister’s death, a pair of helpful talking dolls, a heart boiling on a stove as a means to end sadness, and more. These are great for people who like Bora Chung, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Yōko Ogawa, Carmen Maria Machado, and so many more. And if you get a chance, google the UK edition of this book and check out the amazing cover. (Spoiler: it’s a woman riding a praying mantis like a bucking bull!)

Backlist bump: Sea Change by Gina Chung

And last, but not least, this is a technothriller novella set in Kansas City about three decades in the future. It’s about a trans woman who must return to her old commune after her ex-girlfriend is killed. When Dora hears that Kay has been murdered, she knows that since she doesn’t live there anymore, she’s the only one who isn’t a suspect. Therefore, she should be the one to solve it. What Dora finds at the commune is a place slipping into violence, with two corporations battling it out in Dora’s old stomping grounds, people from her past who wish her harm, and a conspiracy that might be at the heart of it all.

Backlist bump: All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From by Izzy Wasserstein

This week, I am reading Calvin by Martine Leavitt, Monkey King and the World of Myths: The Monster and the Maze by Maple Lam, and No Rules Tonight by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada. We finished season three of Slow Horses, so now we wait along with everyone else for the fourth season, which I have heard will be out in November. We haven’t decided on a new show to watch yet, but that’s okay. I like to have the time to read, too. The song stuck in my head this week is “Evergreen” by Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners (which I wish was three times longer.) And here is your weekly cat picture: Farrokh says, “Blep.”

That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty

“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.”—Rick Polito

This week: I’m currently reading Linghun by Ai Jiang and Mother Doll by Katya Apekina. We are a third of the way into the third season of Slow Horses. It continues to be excellent! I will be sad when we finish and have to wait for the fourth season. And the song stuck in my head right now is “Formula One Racing Girls” by Helen Love. And here’s a cat photo: Farrokh says, “Do not speak to me, human, until you are ready to give me food.”

Tommy Orange’s 2018 debut novel, There There, was a smash success, amassing many awards and nominations, including ending up a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. It’s about the lives of many Native people in America over the last fifty years or so. This novel is related, delivering another devastating and powerful story of Native people in the United States, many related to characters from the first book. It goes back much farther than the first, to the American West during the Civil War and the horrible treatment of Native people by settlers and the country’s young government. It’s based on actual US history and examines the lives of Native people and their fight against the eradication of their people, and the intergenerational trauma passed down through the decades. You don’t need to have read There There to understand what is happening in this book. But if you haven’t read There There yet, I highly recommend starting with that one because why not? Orange is a contemporary literary genius. (This book contains many content warnings, including violence, racism, sexual assault, substance abuse, animal death, and suicide.)

Backlist bump: There There by Tommy Orange

This is a raw, affecting memoir about loss that asks a lot of questions. In 2019, Sloane Crosley’s NYC apartment was burgled while she was out. Many of the pieces of jewelry that were stolen were inherited and had sentimental value. Crosley kept being told she was so lucky that she wasn’t home when it happened. But she didn’t feel lucky, and she wondered why it wasn’t okay for her to grieve the loss of her jewelry. (Hence, ‘grief is for people.’) But not even two weeks later, Crosley’s best friend and former boss died by suicide, linking these two events in her mind. Crosley goes through the emotions after the death of her friend, like anger, blame, grief, and denial, but in telling her story, she also explores many of the things she feels aren’t talked about when someone dies. She wonders why she can find books and support groups for people who lose relatives, children, or significant others but not many for the loss of friends. She becomes fixated on the idea that if she can recover her jewelry, it will bring her best friend back. As she navigates her grief, she is soon faced with a city shut down by the pandemic, forcing everyone to spend time apart, another loss of sorts. Crosley is known for her humorous essay collections and sharp wit, and it is still on display here, but it’s also an honest examination of loss and its individual effects. (Content warnings for grief, trauma, and discussion of suicide throughout.)

Backlist bump: Look Alive Out There: Essays by Sloane Crosley

Before I tell you about this book, you should know that it is a continuation of the events that happened in the first book set in this world, Moon of the Crusted Snow. You can read this on its own, but if you don’t want to know how the first one ended, stop reading right here and pick it up. Otherwise, I am happy to report that this is an awesome follow-up! The first book was about societal collapse after the power goes out everywhere. It didn’t end with warm fuzzies, and now, twelve years after the events in that isolated northern Anishinaabe community, the people living there realize they can no longer get by with what they have. That means going out into an unstable, unknown wilderness and searching a world reclaimed by nature to find resources. A small party of volunteers heads off into the Northern Ontario woods to try to find food like their Indigenous ancestors did. But they learn they are not the only survivors out there in the world, and not everyone they meet has adjusted as well as they have to the apocalypse. It’s another chilling account of violence and survival during events that seem like they could easily happen IRL. (This book has a lot of content warnings, including racism and xenophobia, violence, murder, gore, suicide, loss of a loved one, and animal death.)

Backlist bump: Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

This week, I am reading Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet by Samantha Allen and The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez. In non-book news, we’re halfway through the second season of Slow Horses, and it’s excellent. I can see myself reading the books, even after watching the show. (It’s fun to compare books to their adaptations!) The song stuck in my head this week is “How Many Times” by JJ & The Mood because of an iPhone commercial that they run roughly a bazillion times a day on NBA TV. And here is your weekly cat picture: Farrokh, aka Freddie Purrcury, enjoys sleeping on the fridge with his head hanging over the side.

That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty

“It seems, unfortunately, that nothing can protect you from your own mind, your knowledge, your memories. The harder you fight to keep thoughts out, the harder they pound the battering ram to get in.”—Jacqueline Holland, The God of Endings

As a fan of Faizal’s earlier work, this first in a dark YA duology has been on my TBR since they announced it. How could it not be? A teahouse that turns into an illegal vampire den of iniquity in the evening, with a heist and double-crossing? YES, PLEASE. Arthie Casimir is the owner of the place, an established criminal, and the one everyone tells their secrets to. But when Arthie’s livelihood is threatened, she decides to take on the city’s fanged citizens. She’ll need a crew to pull it off, one she can trust. But Arthie learns the hard way that you can’t really fully trust anyone, especially when it comes to criminals. I would like an adaptation of this right now, please and thank you. And the second book, post haste! (Content warnings for violence, gore, murder, loss of a loved one, racism, and xenophobia.)

Backlist bump: We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

This is Nguon’s powerful story of Cambodia, war, family, and food. Nguon lost her family during the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s. She was able to escape and became a refugee in Thailand, where she worked whatever jobs she could find. Through making the food from the recipes of her family, Nguon kept their memories alive and felt close to them. It also was an act of resistance, recreating the food of the people the Khmer Rouge attempted to wipe out. This is a tough read at times, but it’s also one of bravery and determination. Nguon has written a love letter to those she lost and to the millions of other victims of Pol Pot’s rule. (Content warnings for mentions of violence, war, genocide, racism, sexual assault of children and adults, child death, loss of loved ones, and suicide.)

Backlist bump: Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam by Thien Pham

As I mentioned last week, I love the InvestiGators series, featuring two alligator secret agents named Mango and Brash who solve mysteries and stop crimes for S.U.I.T.* or Special Undercover Investigation Teams. They get all kinds of cool spy gadgets and go on adventures. And now there’s a spinoff series featuring other agents! The first book was with chameleons, and this one is about Bongo and Marsha, the badgers of the B-Team. They are headed to Bora Bora to investigate criminal activity at a tropical resort. I normally recommend books in order, but you can pick any of these up and know what’s going on. They’re very colorful and silly, the villains are never scary, and the books all have more puns than should be legal. (Warning for badgers not wearing any pants.)

Backlist bump: InvestiGators by John Patrick Green

This week, I am reading Green Dot by Madeleine Gray and Killer House Party by Lily Anderson. In non-book news, now that True Detective S4 is done (meh), we need a new show. I am thinking the second season of Slow Horses. We watched the first season and enjoyed it. Then I got it in my head that I wanted to read the books before I continued, but that was two years ago, and it still hasn’t happened. So it’s time to start it again! I haven’t watched a movie in a long time, so I hope to get to a couple of those soon, too. I really want to see Poor Things and All of Us Strangers. (I love Andrew Scott so much.) The song stuck in my head this week is “Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You” by Flock of Seagulls. And here is your weekly cat picture: We are doing spring cleaning early (or late, if you count the last several years, lol), and Farrokh wants to try sleeping on every container we pack. He’s like a little fanged Goldilocks.

I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty

“My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.”—Dylan Thomas