The Mice Before Christmas by Anne L Watson, Wendy Edelson

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I fell in love with this book just from the title, so in a way, I was dreading reading it because I feared it wouldn't live up to the amusement I'd had from title. I'm happy to report the book very much lived up to its name.

I have to add that recently I discovered there are other such books with the same title, but this was the first (and only) one of these I'd seen and read, so I cannot comment on the others. I can say that I was pleased to see artist Wendy Edelson given due credit on the cover instead of being some sort of a footnote tucked down at the bottom as illustrators are all-too-often relegated in children's books, like a few sentences takes more work than pages of quality, detailed artwork! I was very pleased that didn't happen here.

The illustrations are rich, and detailed and colorful, with a delightfully Christmas-y tone to the coloring and style. The writing is far more than a few sentences in this case, and is wonderfully poetic and sweet. The whole story about a mouse Christmas is charming. The mice have no less of a festival at Christmastide than do humans. Not a lot of people know that! They deck the halls, and anything else they can get away with (they're mice after all - and thereby hangs a tail!), and they dress in finery and celebrate at eight sharp, handing out gifts, enjoying good company and good food, and finally making sense of that second line in the poem, "A Visit from St Nicholas"!

I commend this as a worthy read and perhaps the start of a new Christmas tradition, replacing the other poem - which is, lets face it, of dubious provenance!

Sparky's Electrifying Tale by Janelle London, Matthew Metz, Ilya Fortuna

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book is a delightfully devastating indictment of our fossil-fuel culture - specifically internal combustion engines! Written by Janelle London, Matthew Metz, and I'm pleased to say, with a fair-shake (for once in a children's book!) given to a talented artist: Ilya Fortuna, this rhyming and full color illustration book for young kids describes how bad internal combustion engines are (transportation contributes about a third of our climate change problem), without getting preachy and without getting bogged down by too much detail.

The magic hamster frankly to me, looks a bit more like a guinea pig, but I've had both as pets in my youthful years, and I'm not going to quibble about that when it's so delightfully drawn. The book briefly lays out the story of how oil came to be formed, and how it's extracted, and what it does when it's burned - returning all that sequestered carbon into the atmosphere quickly and in large volume. I love this book and commend it fully. We can only hope that the children who will read this will still have a planet worth saving by the time they get old enough to do something about the disaster that we adults are still, even now and knowing what we know, hell-bent on creating for them.

Mommy, What is Confidence? by Shal Chirkut, Brianna Baker

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Again on the topic of confidence, this is another well-done book for young children, but I have to make a point once more that yet again the artist, in this case Brianna Baker, is badly underserved here. Predictably she gets a tiny text mention on the cover, but her name doesn't appear on the Net Galley listing where I downloaded the review copy of this book, nor does Amazon-owned Goodreads Jug O'Nought review website bother to credit her. I can tell you that's because they're a bunch of self-serving jerks at Goodreads, but I would have thought the publisher might treat her with a little more appreciation and consideration on the book cover and in the Net Galley listing.

The observation I'm about to make is far less applicable in this case, because there's a lot of well-thought text in this book - more than you'd usually see - but it's a fact that very many children's books have very little text and to be honest, it's not like it takes months to put together a book like this in terms of the writing. The artwork on the other hand, especially when it's as well done as this, does take time, and thought and work.

As I said, in this case the writing and art are more balanced, but that still doesn't excuse the artist being treated like a minor player. Maybe it's just me, but it bothers me that book illustration artists are treated so shabbily. And no, I am not a book illustrator for hire, so I have no skin in this game. I just feel that every contributor should be fairly treated.

That aside, this book was sweet and well done, and it told a worthy story of a young child, Nikko, who lacks confidence, and the lessons he learns with the aid fo his teacher and his mopm, abotu putitng himself otu there a bit more than he's used to. I commend this as a worthy read.

I Can Believe in Myself by Jack Canfield, Miriam Laundry, Eva Morales

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book is a little bit on the simplistic side, but for the age range it's aimed at, I think it does the trick. It tells the story of young Molly, who is expected to give a speech the next day in front of class, and she's soooo nervous about it. I can relate to Molly since I was that way myself in school. When I was very young, I didn't care so much, but as I grew a little older, something, I know not what, happened and I lost whatever confidence I'd had.

It seems that Molly never did have confidence, and it's quite the ordeal for her. She makes rather bizarre excuses which her teacher seems to buy, to get herself out of speaking, but then she has an epiphany as she realizes that she's not alone: everyone is lacking confidence in doing something or other. She comes up with an ingenious idea to get her friends to dispose of their fear and grow some confidence in themselves.

The only issue I have with this book is the short-shrift that Eva Morales gets for her excellent illustrations, which are beautifully-done and very sweet. I know that writing, particularly in a book of this nature is important, but in terms of sheer effort and work, the artist is the one putitng in the hours and I felt she deserved better than a tiny acknowledgement way down at the bottom of the front cover, and not a word about her at all on the Net Galley page where I downloaded this copy for review. But that's just me, and it's not just this book that underserves artists.

A Crocodile in the Family by Kitty Black, Daron Parton

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

A crocodile is hardly the companion you'd think of as someone who might be kind to birds. I think a better subject could have been chosen, but if you're willing to let that slide, then this was a fun book nicely and amusingly illustrated by Daron Parton and well-written by Kitty Black.

The birds find a stray egg and naturally take it home with them to raise the chick as their own, but it's all a croc! The chick isn't all the egg is cracked up to be! It's green with a large jaw and some dangerous claws, and you might think that bites, but this is Australia where they have bites for breakfast. And we certainly shouldn't expect everyone else to be just like us - in fact that's the whole point of the story!

Croccy grows large and enjoys dancing and wearing colorful sweaters, and he always helps people crossing the river. The family is often asked if one or another of these various aspects of his personality are the reason why they keep him, but the answer is always no. I fully expected the answer at the end to be "Because we love him" but it isn't! Now you'll have to read it to find out what that answer is!

Rebel Girls Powerful Pairs by Rebel Girls

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is one of a series pf books aimed at younger readers, highlighting powerful, adventurous, and inventive woman - in this case pairing moms and daughters. I'd have loved to have given you a list of contents, but the app was so tightly locked-down that it wouldn't even let me copy that. Why a publisher would be so short-sighted as to want to hobble a reviewer from highlighting who's who in this book, and not even list that information elsewhere is a complete mystery to me, but I sure don't have the time to manually type all that out when I have other things I need to be doing! So this review will be short!

As the book cover says, it's 25 moms and daughters, some of whom, such as Beyoncé and her curiously-named daughter "Blue Ivy," or the Pankhursts, or the Curies, you may well have heard of. Others are much more obscure to the general reader, such as Wang Changyi and Nu Mei Mei, and Kim Yeshi (aka Pema Dolkar) and daughter Dechen, but they are no less important. All have inspiring stories to tell, and they are worth reading, so I commend this as a worthy read.

Octopus, Seahorse, Jellyfish by David Liittschwager

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Note that reviewers such as myself are allowed only an ebook version and in this case only a 16 page sample of the actual book, so it's hard to make a good judgment from this. It's not like it's a work of fiction where you can read a few pages and tell pretty quickly if the book is well-written or a piece of trash, so this review is only of the sample I received, of which only five pages were the actual book, the rest being introductory preface, contents, etc. So not much of a sample!

The second problem with getting only the ebook version is that you can't comment on the print version, nor can I say if this is ever going to be released as an ebook. I suspect not, but that's just an opinion. The problem with the ebook is that the publisher made the dire mistake of releasing it in Kindle format. I have said this many times and I say it again: unless your book is plain vanilla text (without even so much as dropcaps) it's a grave mistake to put it into Kindle format because Amazon's crappy Kindle process will, nine times out of ten, reduce it to kindling. In the Kindle version, viewed on an a standard iPad, it trashed pictures, slicing and dicing and Julienning them turning the book into a disordered jumble. The book looked much better in Blue Fire Reader and in Adobe Digital Editions.

The pictures, when presented properly, were beautiful to look at and the supporting text informative. Based on this sample alone, the book appears to be a worthy read.

Sixth Sunday by Arielle Haughee, Anastasiya Yanovskaya

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a charmer of a book written by Arielle Haughee, and beautifully illustrated by Anastasiya Yanovskaya. I have to say it's a personal peeve of mine that writers get so much credit and the illustrators, who in a book like this do by far the most work, get second billing - if they're lucky! The cover mentions Anastasiya Yanovskaya - who is an excellent artist - but the Net Galley listing for this book makes no mention of her at all. I find that reprehensible. But this review is of the book and not the Net Galley listing, so here we go!

The nameless family depicted here seems to consist only of child and mom, and the child is fantasizing about how the day will go when Mom finally kicks loose and breaks all the rules (cue the Footloose song!) - which we're assured will happen on the sixth Sunday of the month. Which I feel I must warn you is considerably rarer than a blue moon!

The riotous plans start with jumping on the bed after waking up, then down to a raucous breakfast (via the means of rollerskate crocs!), off to baseball, burping the alphabet, and a host of other nonsensical but fun activities, ending with a mom passed out from exhaustion and snoring on the couch. I thought this was a great book, full of the joy of living, and fun ideas for kids to try themselves for that matter. I commend it fully as a worthy read.

Saint Nicholas the Giftgiver by Ned Bustard

Rating: WARTY!

I can't give this a positive review because it's nothing short of a religious tract that takes hazy and unreliable legends as facts and runs with them. Yes, there was a Nicholas, and yes, he himself was a church leader, and after his life was over, he had many improbable legends built-up around him and became a saint, but to present these folk-tales as fact - for example that he slapped an Arian bishop because he disagreed with him, when early roll calls of that very congregation do not list Nicholas as even being there, is problematical, as is a Christian church leader resorting to a violent act like that when the Bible itself calls for turning the other cheek! That's hardly saintly!

This book presents the story of Nicholas donating three bags of gold to a father so he could marry off his three daughters as fact when it's highly unlikely this happened, and the whole story is a problem even if it did happen because of the way it treats women as property to be bartered. A real saint would have taken a different tack! I know this is how things were done back then, but that merely serves to highlight the shortcomings of this man, not enhance him.

Gift-giving was a Roman tradition long before Nicholas ever came onto the scene, so he wasn't the one who originated that habit, although he was copted as a post-hoc excuse for it once commercialism saw the value of promoting the purchase and swapping of seasonal gifts. So overall I cannot commned his as a worthy read.

Will You be the I in Kind? by Julia Cook, Jomike Tejido

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a gorgeously- and diversely-illustrated (by Jomike Tejido) and sweetly written (by Julia Cook) picture book about putting the 'I' in kind by stepping up when kindness is called for, and setting a good example for others to follow. Several examples are given,such as offering to help up someone who has fallen down, by having a ready smile, by making sure trash gets into the trash bin where it belongs, by taking an interest in others, and by letting a young kid go before you if you're waiting in a long line.

This is a good sentiment and we often forget to follow it for a variety of reasons, which is why a reminder such as this one is so helpful. I commend this book as a worthy read.

Geckos Don't Blink by Kelly Tills

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is the first to two related books I got for review purposes from Net Galley. They were by the same author, and were two small volumes in a series of short, illustrated children's books about interesting animal facts, which I thought might be fun. The problem was that they both were unreadable.

They came in three reading options. One was the Kindle version, which I knew would be a disaster, but which I sent to my Kindle app anyway, and got exactly what I'd expected. Actually I got less than I expected, because I expected at least to have some images that were sliced, diced, and julienned, which is what Kindle routinely does to anything that's not plain vanilla text. Instead I got completely blank screens! This isn't even the kindling I expected Amazon's crappy, limited, and destructive system to deliver.

Not losing heart, I progressed to one of the two other options Net Galley offered, which was an epub format. Usually there is no problem here, but in this case, it was almost as bad as the Kindle. At least I could see the images for the book's pages, but they were truncated. Normally, if a book runs to two pages, you half-expect it to be chopped up in electronic format, but the other half of the image was not on the next screen - it was gone completely! This meant that sometimes the image had been chopped, but usually it meant that the text had been curtailed and was unreadable because so much of it was missing.

Finally, there was a Net Galley reading app format, which normally is acceptable, but with which I've occasionally had problems. In this case, what I got was exactly the same result I got from the epub version: seriously bowdlerized images and text. Both of these books suffered the same problems. I honestly do not know how a publisher can distribute a book in this condition. Did no one think to check?! I imagine these books were designed from the ground up as print books, but we reviewers still need them to be legible in the electronic version!

Normally I like to positively review children's books if they have any redeeming features at all, but this one had zero. Consequently I have no choice but to declare this book warty to the max!

Cows Have No Top Teeth by Kelly Tills

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is the first to two related books I got for review purposes from Net Galley. They were by the same author, and were two small volumes in a series of short, illustrated children's books about interesting animal facts, which I thought might be fun. The problem was that they both were unreadable.

They came in three reading options. One was the Kindle version, which I knew would be a disaster, but which I sent to my Kindle app anyway, and got exactly what I'd expected. Actually I got less than I expected, because I expected at least to have some images that were sliced, diced, and julienned, which is what Kindle routinely does to anything that's not plain vanilla text. Instead I got completely blank screens! This isn't even the kindling I expected Amazon's crappy, limited, and destructive system to deliver.

Not losing heart, I progressed to one of the two other options Net Galley offered, which was an epub format. Usually there is no problem here, but in this case, it was almost as bad as the Kindle. At least I could see the images for the book's pages, but they were truncated. Normally, if a book runs to two pages, you half-expect it to be chopped up in electronic format, but the other half of the image was not on the next screen - it was gone completely! This meant that sometimes the image had been chopped, but usually it meant that the text had been curtailed and was unreadable because so much of it was missing.

Finally, there was a Net Galley reading app format, which normally is acceptable, but with which I've occasionally had problems. In this case, what I got was exactly the same result I got from the epub version: seriously bowdlerized images and text. Both of these books suffered the same problems. I honestly do not know how a publisher can distribute a book in this condition. Did no one think to check?! I imagine these books were designed from the ground up as print books, but we reviewers still need them to be legible in the electronic version!

Normally I like to positively review children's books if they have any redeeming features at all, but this one had zero. Consequently I have no choice but to declare this book warty to the max!

Twelve Days to Save Christmas by Elizabeth Neep

Rating: WARTY!

"When her boyfriend dumps her shortly before Christmas, Poppy hatches a plan to win him back, including volunteering at a community center. But as she discovers a new side of herself through her work, the holiday miracle she gets may be something entirely unexpected!" Everyone else - quite literally everyonr else on the entire planet expected that, so why didn't this dumb-ass expect it? Yawn.

A Murderous Tangle by Sally Goldenbaum

Rating: WARTY!

"A village business owner turns up dead as the Seaside Knitters prepare for their holiday showcase. Now it’s up to the friends to untangle the truth and catch a killer!" Unfortunately, they spend so much time knitting their brows that the police solve the ct\rime before these assholes can manage to get to it, and it really needles them.... Yawn.

Dance of a Burning Sea EJ Mellow

Rating: WARTY!

"When notorious pirate lord Alōs Ezra is exiled from the Thief Kingdom, he threatens to hold captivating sorceress Niya Bassette hostage to negotiate a pardon — but after boarding his ship, a dangerous attraction begins blooming between them" Of course it does because a brutal kidnapper deserves to have his victim fall for him. It's only right. Right? What a towering heap of crap this idea is. Why would he care if he was exiled? He's a fucking pirate! And why can't the sorceress end him and escape? And why the fuck is he a pirate lord, exactly? What the hell does that even mean?! Barf.

Seven Deadly Sequins by Julie Anne Lindsey

Rating: WARTY!

"After dress shop owner Bonnie Balfour’s grandmother Gigi confronts a former friend about a stolen recipe," Seriously? That's your motive? Yawn. "...the thief ends up dead — and Gigi’s fingerprints are found all over the murder weapon! Now Bonnie must don her sleuthing cap and team up with her feline sidekick, Clyde, to figure out whodunit." Because yeah, a cat named Clyde will figure it out. Geeze! Barf.

The Marquess of Gorsewall Manor by Adella J Harris

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a beautifully-written novel about two gay men, set in the Regency period, which despite its 300-some page length, was a delightful and fast read for me. It's not one of your smutty bare-chested muscle guy on the cover erotic story, which are so cliched and overdone that I canlt even get past the absurdist book blurb. Such novels are typically execrable, but this was thoughtful, well-paced, considereate, intelligent, and offered plenty to keep a reader occupied. There were some sex scenes, but not many, and those were tastefully done, and believe it or not, this was written in first person, a voice I usually detest, but it was well done. Once in a while an author can carry it off and I appreciated this author's light touch.

The story makes a reader feel they are back in the Regency without being too heavy-handed about it or imparting the feeling that the author is yelling, "Hey, look how much research I did!" It was easy to read and made a lot of sense in how it was put together, and in how the relationship developed realistically between the two main characters: naturally and thoughtfully.

Thomas Brook works in a lower-level legal job in London. He's gay, but discreet, and it's only through bad luck that he's arrested in a molly house and brought to trial on charges of indecency which back then would net you a time in the public pillory and a couple of years of hard labor. Why they considered locking up a gay guy with a whole bunch of other guys to be a real punishment is a question that's worth asking, but as it happened, Thomas didn't get that far. Due to laxity and confusin during the pillorying process, he manages to get away and immedately starts sneaking onto the back of stagecoaches heading north, paying for an occasional meal by offering discreet oral sex to certainly likely travelers or locals when he feels it's safe to do so.

Eventually though, his luck runs out and he's forced to take to his feet again, and ends up passed out on the moors. Not by coincidence, he's discovered before further harm can befall him, by Lord Elmsby, who also happens to be gay and dealing with issues of his own. Elmsby takes Thomas on as a cataloguer of his library until the latter gets back on his feet, and the two start to develop a mutual liking.

Elmsby's history includes a scandal several years before, when his fiancée disappeared without a trace, so he leads a solitary life now and Thomas is a welcome novelty - at least at first. But when a body surfaces on the moors, Thomas is left wondering what he's got himself into.

As I said, the story was engaging and entertaining, warm and enjoyable, although the murderer was quite obvious from quite early, and I'm usually bad about figuring out who the perp is in such stories. That didnlt spoilt he sotry for me though. It offered variety and entertainment, and was nicely-written with only a couple of minor spelling gaffs that I didn't bother over. I fully commend this as a worthy read.

A Quick & Easy Guide to Asexuality by Molly Muldoon, Will Hernandez

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

It pains me to have to say that this non-fiction 'graphic novel' style of a book will likely not get read by anywhere near as many people as need to read it, and especially not by the ones who have most to learn from it. It's not aimed just at the LGBTQIAP+ community, but also at everyone else. As such, and indeed like that acronym (LGBTQIAP+), it tries to be so inclusive that it risks becoming too nebulous and on one occasion led to a faux pas, but overall, it's a very worthy read for anyone who needs a sort of a baseline introduction into what can be a briar-patch topic.

The problem with this subject, asexuality, as I mentioned in my review of Julia Sondra Decker's book The Invisible Orientation: is that there's a lot of nebulousness inherent in it, and if it isn't handled properly, being vague and fuzzy around the edges can do more harm than good. That's actually why I didn't like the Decker book, a reference to which is included in this book in an all-too-brief section at the end (and in which the author's name is mispelled! It's Decker, not Decke!) My beef with this vague approach is that, in reference to the present work, it risks confirming any possible a priori reader conceptions - such as that asexuality really isn't a thing, or that it's a condition, or that it can be 'cured' with some good therapy.

For me, this book did have a positive approach which made things clear - and it reinforced those things, and typically did not undermine the message by meandering or rambling, or otherwise muddying the water, although my understanding is that the 'A' in LGBTQIAP+ refers to asexual (and including aromantic and agender) and does not refer to 'ally', as important as those are. I think this is a problem with inclusivity: in trying to get as much support as possible and inviting everyone under the banner, the community has sometimes made itself a source of disenchantment and disagreement about who exactly should be in, as it were, and perhaps risking diluting the message, which ultimately and in simple form, is that there's nothing wrong with being different.

This disagreement has been running through the movement for decades and in a variety of forms though. People have asked, 'should the community only by gay and lesbian, and other persuasions, orientations, statuses (or however you want to term them) should be under a different banner?' Others might argue that LGBTQI should be in but the 'A' not included, and so on. In short, it's a bit of a mess. Frankly, for me, there are much bigger battles to fight, and these relatively petty skirmishes are not helpful. This is precisely why these various groups need to work together. Maybe once the big battle is won, those disagreements will not seem so important.

But I liked this book. I like that it keeps it simple and straight forward, to reduce the risk of confusing issues and confusing people. It was short and well-written by Molly Muldoon, and it was decently illustrated and diversly-drawn in grayscale by Will Hernandez, so it's very much an own-voices publication. That doesn't mean everyone will agree with how it was written here, but it does mean it's another source of information. It has a light tone and is very informative. It sends a positive and clear message, and I considered it a worthy read.

Ride With Me by Lucy Keating

Rating: WARTY!

"...neighborhood rideshare driver Charlie Morgan" You know if a female character is named Charlie it's a non-starter. "...embarks on a collision course with love when she crashes into the school’s cute but annoying" That 'cute but annoying' or variations thereof, is a loser approach too. It's been done to death already. This blurb writer needs a new shtick - badly! "...party boy and wrecks his car and her no-strings-attached attitude toward life." Yeah, that makes me thoroughly uninterested in reading anything about that dickhead female character. Barf.

Saucer by Stephen Coonts

Rating: WARTY!

Isn't this just a re-write of Sphere?! "When Rip Cantrell discovers a centuries-old flying saucer in the Sahara desert, it isn’t long before the world’s elite will try to steal its secrets." So naturally the best people to handle this object are: the Americans! Because it has nothing to do with the locals. Colonize much? If there's one thing worse than cultural appropriation, it's nation appropriation.... Barf.

Ninth City Burning by J Patrick Black

Rating: WARTY!

"On a devastated future Earth, military cadet Jax and migrant Naomi join an epic quest to stop a terrifying alien invasion!" as opposed to those invasions that aren't remotely terrifying and in fact are quite fun? Barf. And once again, we have the most oveer-employed go-to guy Jack - or in thsi futuristic version, Jax, which is just as bad. Do these authors have no imagination? So, no thanks. I'll catch the next "terrifying invasion."

Edge of Magic by Jayne Faith

Rating: WARTY!

I made it about a third the way through this before I gave up because it was turning into your usual trope YA story with a troubled protaginist and a studly, chiseled wolfman coming to her rescue. Because, as you well know, women are useless on their own, according to far too many female YA writers. As far as I read, it hadn't quite progressed to her being tearful in his manly arms, but it sure as hell was on the steep and slippery downslide to the end, which is why I quit reading it. Just once in a while! Just once in a while, it would be nice to have an authro surprise me and to read something that isn't warmed-over; that isn't shit-scared to take a different tack, you know? It almost never happens.

That's why I write. To fill that yearning gap. It makes me wonder what's wrong with people - not just the pandering lackluster authors, but the limp fucks who read this shit. Don't they ever wish for something new and original? Soemthign jsut that bit different? Maybe that's the problem - they want no difference, or just that little bit of difference. Anything else scares them, because otherwise why would they seem to be so happy with this drab and boring pap? This is likely why I will never sell anything in significant numbers because I quite literally cannto write that badly. I cannot be that uninventive or derivative.

I should have known from the off, when I read the word 'fae' in the book blurb that this wasn't for me. Any author who is too chickenshit to call 'em fairies is not for me. The character names sucked, too: Tara Knightley and Judah McMahon? Really? But I liked the idea of a thief trying to pay off a debt to an unscruptulous jerk. I liked that she wasn't all powerful. It was just that trope tryst which turned me right off, because it was so predictbale and so utterly boring. Could she not once have chosen a path that's not so oft-taken? I guess not.

On top of this Tara is a bit onf a one-note whiner. I know she's had troubles, but her constant referencing of them is tedious and depressing, especially since she seems not to really be trying very hard to dig her way out. If she had tried as much as she gripes, she'd have paid off her debt five years ago! Judah is equally trope, having hotness and wealth as his only qualities. They haven't had any contact in a decade since he left after a falling out, yet neither has moved on. It's pathetic: sad, predictable, and boring.

On top of all that, Tara is the sole breadwinner and provider for all the people who live in the house and she doesn't even get her own room, much less any gratitude or assistance from anyone to pay bills. And she has no problem with this (apart from her internal monolgue whining)! It's all too extreme.

The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang

Rating: WARTY!

This was a mess, and not even a hot one. It was so boring that I twice tried to get into it and failed in short order both times, ending up DNF-ing it. There was nothing to hold onto, nothing drawing me in, nothing that that stirred my interest. I resent that I paid for this. I think I'm going to flat-out quit reading any story from now on that features twins.

The very short novel, which I encountered in audiobook form read by the sadly unengaging Nancy Wu, is supposedly about Mokoya and Akeha. The former has a gift of prophecy, the latter an ability to see motivations in people, but in the portion I could stand to listen to, they never really used these gifts to much effect. It seems they were involved not in a story but in a succession of cameos fighting fantastical monsters, and then boring would happen for a while, until the next monster presented itself for extermination. The story was rambling and tedious, and once I realized it really wasn't going anywhere, I had no interest in continuing with it. I can't commend it based on what I heard.

Thicker than Blood by Mike Omer

Rating: WARTY!

"FBI profiler Zoe Bentley and agent Tatum Gray think nothing can shake them — until they come across a serial killer who may be drinking his victims’ blood. Worse, this killer might be the same as the one who has been haunting Zoe since she was a child." Oh look! The protagonist with a haunted past! How original. This is a must-read...something else instead!

The Scarlet Ruse by John D MacDonald

Rating: WARTY!

"...washed-up detective Travis McGee is dragged back into the sleuthing game." Oh look: the out of commission protagonist dragged back into the fray - because that's never been done before. Yawn.

The President’s Daughter by Bill Clinton, James Patterson

Rating: WARTY!

"When former president Matthew Keating’s daughter is abducted, her safety becomes a matter of national security." Why? Did she spy on her dad when he was at work? Naturally, because she's a white girl, and a rich one at that, she's far more important than any other kidnapping or lost child. Yawn. And did Bill Clinton really write this? Really? This man had at least four different speechwriters when he was at the height of his power, and now we're expected to believe he's writing his own novels? If so, why is Patterson involved? I have no time for either of these guys. Sorry, but no cigar.

Sage Gardens Cozy Mystery Box Set Books 1–4 by Cindy Bell

Rating: WARTY!

"In this delightful box set, four senior sleuths draw upon their professional skills to solve mysterious murders in the seemingly idyllic Sage Gardens retirement community." So wait, there are four, count 'em four murders in this one retirement comunity and no one thinks this is at all bizarre? If it were true, people would be flocking out of this community in droves. I can imagine the publicity literature for the community would say something like, "Come and live in our idyllic community - we haven't had a murder this week - yet!"

And the police are so useless, as usual, that four retirees are solving the crimes? What are their 'professional skills'? Judged by other such crappy mystery novels, they have to be: knitting, cup-cake baking, bookstore managing, and porn-movie making. Just kidding on that last one, I can guarantee you there's zero sex of any sort in any way in any of these four novels because as everyone knows, old folks don't even think about sex, let alone have any! Barf.

Eliza Starts a Rumor by Jane L Rosen

Rating: WARTY!

"Brimming with charm, Eliza Starts a Rumor is everything I look for in a book" according to Emily Henry. I have no idea who the hell that is, so why should I care what she thinks? There's no one on Earth who knows me well enough to reliably predict whether I will enjoy a novel or a movie or a TV show. Even I can't always be sure if I will go for it, so it sure as hell isn't someone I never heard of who is oging to nail it! Fictional books with a woman's name in the title, no matter what the genre, somehow tend to be the most uninteresting of novels. They're not the same as those featuring a female prominently as a character, but without posting it in the title. It's like the least able writers know their limitations, and feel forced to put a woman's name in the title in desperate hopes of attracting interest. "For empty nester Eliza, her local Hudson Valley virtual bulletin board keeps her sane" This is how boring this main charcter is! This is her life? No thanks! I don't want to hear about it. The fact that the idiot book blurb writer even describes her as an 'empty nester', like that's a quality, is insulting. And who the hell is called Eliza anymore?

The Kat Dubois Chronicles Books 1–3 by Lindsey Sparks aka Lindsey Fairleigh

Rating: WARTY!

Lindsey Sparks aka Lindsey Fairleigh? She's openly admitted that she lied about who she is, but I get the point even less as to why she's now admitting her deceit. Go figure. Only recently have I read of a scandal in Spain where three men were 'outed' as it were, as impersonating a female author - one they invented to sell novels. Admittedly fiction breeds fiction, and one may well ask, if we're writing lies for entertainment, why does it matter if we lie about who writes the lies? It turns out that author Carmen Mola is really Agustín Martínez, Antonio Mercero, and Jorge Díaz! They won an award!

Actual female author Beatriz Gimeno complained that It wasn't just the name, it was the fake profile they used to deceive readers and journalists. She called them scammers. How is what they did any different from what literally scores of writers have been doing for years? You may say, well they crossed a line when they changed gender, but what was it Joanne Rowling did after Harry Potter? She started a series of novels writing as a man: Robert Galbraith! 'He' even has 'his' own website! What the Spanish authors did is no different. It's a deliberate attempt to deceive and mislead readers for the sake of selling books. I've documented over a dozen of these in my reviews, and I'm sure there are scores more.

The 'chronicles' in the title is an automatic rejection from me, and that's even before I read the blurb! "When her brother goes missing, former assassin and immortal Kat is promptly pulled out of retirement." So it's another 'someone coming out of retirement', because "only I can fix it" trumped up, retreaded clone of a story. "Facing a slew of old enemies and her own demons" plus a main character haunted by demons! And the charcter's name is the tired and over-used Kat? Really? How old is this whole idea? How trope? How overdone is it? How boring? How unimaginative is it? How uninventive? Barf.

Desire Lines by Christina Baker Kline

Rating: WARTY!

"A decade after her friend’s disappearance, Jennifer returns to her small Maine hometown to untangle the truth." That's my problem right there: why did this dipshit sit around doing nothing for a decade, letting trails go cold, and then decide to investigate? This is one in a long line of cookie-cutter stories that all follow this same dumb-ass pattern. Yawn.

Relics by RD Shah

Rating: WARTY!

"Archaeology professor Alex Harker races to escape a ruthless assassin and decode the clues to an ancient conspiracy! Fans of Dan Brown will enjoy this fast-moving tale of intrigue and adventure." Sure, if you enjoy know-it-all "Americans" riding rough-shod over foreign cultures, because you can never have enough of that.... The fact that it has 'chronicles' on the cover is a warning right there, and the fact that on the author's own website, he demonstrates that he doesn't know the difference between a 'millennia' and a 'millennium' is enough to keep me well-away from this bandwagon.

Melt for You by JT Geissinger

Rating: WARTY!

That title right there says "Run, don't walk, away from this sleazy trash!" The asinine blurb says, "If shy Joellen Bixby wants to woo her boss, she’ll need some flirting lessons from the playboy next door!" How is a straight, cis playboy going to teach a shy (read: virgin) woman how to flirt with a guy? "Scottish rugby captain Cameron McGregor may not be her type, but she happens to be his dream woman" so naturally he's going to own her because that's what women are for, right? Their only use is to be ogled and owned, and their only purpose is to satisfy men, and their only goal is to chase men. I knwo this because there are literally hudnreds fo female authors broadcastign it on a daily basis. Barf.

The Ellie O’Conner Suspense Series Books I–IV by Jack Hardin

Rating: WARTY!

"Elle retired from a career in the CIA to find some peace and quiet in sleepy Pine Island, Florida," because you can never have enough stories where a retiree comes out of retirement because they alone can fix it. Yawn. Note that this is not books one through four, it's books eye to eye-vee, okay? Because, Roman times, you know?

The Pretty Ones by Robin Mahle

Rating: WARTY!

"In this gripping crime thriller, a twisted serial killer" As opposed to a perfectly normal, well-balanced serial killer? Barf. This should be up for some dumb-ass of the year award for book blurbs. "...whose victims have only one thing in common — their beauty — stalks the streets of Los Angeles." Yeah - because we desperately need another novel about how beauty is by far the most important thing that any woman can lay claim to. "As the body count rises, can FBI special agent Kate Reid and the LAPD crack the case before more lives are taken?" Not if the body-count is rising. This book blurb writer is definitely way up there in the dumb-ass stakes. Will they catch the killer? LOL! Is that a serious question or yet another dumb-ass one? Another dumb-ass blurb from a leading dumb-ass writer of dumb-ass book blurbs.

The Five Senses Set by Andre Norton

Rating: WARTY!

This is a purported 'magical collection of adventures" from 'one of the all-time masters' according to Peter Straub. Peter Who? LOL! And I've never even heard of this author so how is he an all-time master? The blurb is useless: "To save their worlds from evil, three powerful women must stand up to corruption, violence, and wizardry." Yeah, that tells me a whole heck of a lot, but the real mystery here is that this is called the five senses collection, yet there are only three volumes. I guess that makes it senseless and we should give it the finger?

The Sweet Shop of Second Chances by Hannah Lynn

Rating: WARTY!

"When city girl Holly’s life falls apart, she begins anew in the quaint, cozy village of her youth" How many times has this story been told? It's the same story as "Sweet Revenge" by Morgana Best. The endless capacity of far too many female authors for telling and retelling the same tired old story of weak women running away, never fails to astound me.

The Christmas Walk Caper by JB Michaels

Rating: WARTY!

"Curl up with a cozy Christmas mystery that’s first in a series" Of course it is. One every Christmas? I doubt it. "This holiday season, retired cop Mac and his girlfriend, Millie, have a conundrum to solve. When a kindly shop owner meets her untimely end under suspicious circumstances, this sleuthing duo must crack the case!" Why? What the fuck business is it of theirs? They're going to be interfering busy-bodies who obstruct the police and withhold evidence. I know this because these stories are all the same! That's why the word 'sleuth' in a book description is a dire warning to avoid that novel like the plague. Yawn.

The Woman in Red by Diana Giovinazzo

Rating: WARTY!

What an original title! "When Anita meets resistance leader Giuseppe, she is set on an unforgettable course to liberate Southern Brazil from Portugal." Described as "An epic tale of one woman’s fight to take control of her circumstances" by subjugating herself to a man whose first resort is to violence to settle a problem. Yeah. Right. And Giuseppe? Really? That's neither a Portuguese nor a Brazilian name. It's Italian. Barf.

The Summer Games Settling the Score by RS Grey

Rating: WARTY!

"Andie has dedicated her entire life to scoring on the soccer field — which means her love life has languished on the sidelines. But when she arrives in Rio for her first Olympics, gorgeous British swimmer Frederick might have her ditching her cleats for some time between the sheets" And some antiobotics to treat the diseases she'll inevitably pick up. Barf. There's no romance here. Move along.

The Curse of the Bruel Coven by Sabrina Ramoth

Rating: WARTY!

This story comes larded with a lot of trope, but it is YA, so that's par for the course unfortunately. There's very little under the sun that's new in YA, especially when it comes to supernatural tales. The story is short and fast-paced; perhaps too fast for some readers, but I liked that it did not not ramble and meander. If it had, I probably would have DNF'd it.

While this novel avoided some of the pitfalls in the genre, it could not seem to keep itself from falling headlong into the middle of others. For those reasons - which I shall go into shortly - and for the fact that it is the start of a series, which means that at best, it's only a prologue and not an actual story, and so has no resolution, I can't commend it. It's not exactly a cliff-hanger ending, but it's close. I will not be pursuing this series.

The first cliché to curse this story is that of the orphaned teenager suddenly coming into a realization and/or suddenly coming into her powers. "Vivienne Davenport is an ordinary teenager - at least, she thinks she is. Then the untimely death of her mother reveals a family secret. She's adopted... and her real mom is a witch." Yeah. Not a story-killer of a cliché, but there's certainly not anything new or original on offer here. Someone who is the most powerful, yet least experienced is a tautology and a tired trope in this case.

On top of that, there's a curse that only the special snowflake child can lift, despite everyone telling her it's unbreakable: "Buried deep within her family’s history of magic is a deadly curse that has plagued them for generations." That's a bit much and it sure isn't resolved in volume one!

The inexplicable thing here, about the story so far, is that despite no one - but no one - wanting Vivienne to know about her family history, and despite her having been been protected from the curse Harry Potter style by living away from the magical world with relatives - her adoptive mother inexplicably left a photo of Vivienne, as a child and in the arms of her birth mother, in a family photo album. That made zero sense to me, but it was this author's rather hamfisted way of bringing realization to Vivienne and launching her into her quest.

So Vivienne travels to New Orleans (at least it's not Salem - barf! - but it's still trope as hell) with her best friend, unimaginatively named Savannah. Savannah accompanied her for one cheap and clichéd reason only, which I shall get to at the end of this review. Vivienne quickly discovers that her birth mother has been kidnapped.

The idiot blurb writer gets frantic at this point and tosses the usual dumb-ass questions at the potential reader: "Can Vivienne become the witch she needs to be? Or will her newfound powers prove too much for her to handle?" We know they won't otherwise how is the author going to pad this out into a series?

Then the blurb writer lies, as usual: "She will soon learn that all magic comes at a price." No, it doesn't. It even tells us in the novel itself that spells cost something, but what it shows us is that just like in the Harry Potter stories, no matter what spell is cast, it costs nothing to the caster. The magic is tediously trope. There's nothing new or inventive. It's all about the four (non-)elements: air, earth, fire, and water. The protagonist, of course, is fire.

At one point I read how the Moon is tied to silver, the Sun to gold, but there was no explanation as to why. The protagonist complains that she's "still not really understanding his explanation." I'm not either! The Sun is arguably a gold color, but there's quite literally no metallic gold in the sun. That element - a real element - isn't created until a star explodes. Likewise I doubt there's much silver on the Moon, if any. Believe it or not, for an airless body, the Moon is 60% oxygen - all of which is bound to metallic and other elements in the Moon's interior. Pretty much all of the rest of it is silicon and aluminum with traces of calcium, iron, magnesium, and titanium. The color of the Moon is merely a reflection of the sun and it's not even a silver color! So whence this linking to those valuable metals? It's nonsensical.

Vivienne is launched on a crash course in practical magic which, unlike Harry Potter, she masters improbably quickly, and is magically lighting candles, throwing troubled guys into walls, and levitating, in no time. We learn that she, not Aubrey, a cousin, is now the high priestess of the coven - a coven here being six, not thirteen for reasons unexplained. The grand priestess though is Vivienne's grandmother who is consistently referred to as Grand’Mere. Now that word isn’t missing a letter so why the apostrophe?! I dunno! Another mystery!

The magic was a joke. In addition to the trope herbs and candles, and that crap, the spells were cast in Hallmark rhymes which made me laugh. It made no more sense than Harry Potter casting spells by waving a stick and chanting two Latin words. The obvious question is: what language did they use to cast spells before Latin came along? And if it worked, why switch to Latin? In the case of this story, how did they cast spells back in medieval times if they couldn't rhyme in modern English? LOL! It felt cheap and cheesy, and truly juvenile.

That wasn't the worst thing though. In this genre, the whole thing about magic is that it's supernatural - outside, or over and above nature yet the author says at one point, "you can’t override nature. If something is too far gone, you can’t bring it back. It goes against the rules of nature." But isn't that precisely what magic does?! How is levitating complying with the rules of nature? How is turning something invisible, complying with the rules of nature? How is moving an object with the mind complying with the rules of nature? This made zero sense. The author had not thought it through.

There were some writing issues where the author, in her haste, had unfortunately juxtaposed words amusingly, such as when I read, "A sudden tightness wracked my chest when I saw the photo of Mom and me sitting on her dresser." So while they had once sat on the dresser, someone photographed them doing it?! It's a minor quibble. We've all been down that authoring rabbit-hole. At another point there was a misuse of a word when I read, "I shoved Nanette’s magical satchel into my jeans pocket." What she meant was sachet, not satchel. You can't fit a satchel into your jeans pocket!

A bigger problem was when I read things like: "I hopped into my metallic blue Jeep," or "Sebastian's Altima screeched to a halt behind us." Apparently it's important to the author that we know he has an Altima, because she mentions it twice. Why? I don't know and I don't care, nor is it relevant that she has a metallic blue Jeep. I don't get that approach to writing that at all. If the make and color of the car are important for some reason, then yeah, but here? Not so much! It's overkill and comes off as obsessive.

At one point I read that someone's voice "crackled" - when the author quite evidently meant that it "cracked." That's auto-correct for you! But these were minor issues which were not a big deal when compared with the problems in the writing, such as when Vivienne displaces her cousin Aubrey as high priestess of the coven. Aubrey doesn't take this well, and her incessant snide remarks about Vivienne's powers - or lack thereof - were so frequent that they quickly became tedious to read.

There was a certain amount of manhandling of the females going on here, too. If they were close family, then this would have been understandable, but Vivienne and Savannah had literally just met these people, and barely knew them. There had been no time to bond, yet the guys are inappropriately familiar and it became a bit creepy to read.

You thought I'd forgot about Savannah, huh? No! Early in the story, Savannah loses her phone at Vivienne's bio-mom's house, and it's when they go back there to recover it that they discover she's been adbucted. At the end of the story - way too late for it to matter - they recover Savannah's phone and yet no one suspects for a minute it might have been cursed or had something else done to it. These people are morons. And again, way too late for it to matter, Savannah is dispatched home for her safety, regardless of the fact that nowhere is she safer than right there with the witch coven in the protected home right where she was.

At the end of the story, a little is made of the fact that Vivienne hasn't heard from Savannah - calling to confirm that she made the hour-long drive home safely. Vivienne idiotically dismisses it as Savannah's phone having lost its charge, despite the phone having been barely used. I have a theory that volume two, as is de rigeur for a series, is an exact copy of volume one, except that now it's Savannah who has been abducted rather than Vivienne's bio-mom. I have no way of knowing if this is true and I don't care to find out, but that's my guess.

So the cheap and clichéd reason that Savannah (who had very little to do in the story, and who could actually have been dispensed with entirely) accompanied Vivienne was to become the new maiden in distress for volume two. Barf! Two volumes and two instances of a female being the weak link - and from a female author? That's as shameful as it is pathetic. I can't commend this series.

Atlantis Lost by J Robert Kennedy

Rating: WARTY!

"Did an earthquake in Portugal reveal the lost city of Atlantis?" No, because it enver existed dipshit. Tired trope abounds. Yawn.

More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

Rating: WARTY!

"An engrossing read from a Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author hailed as 'one of the greatest writers of science fiction… who ever lived' (Stephen King)" That explains why no one has ever heard of him. And I should base my purchasing plans on advice from an author I can't stand, why exactly? Anyone? Bueller? Barf.

Just a Little Heartache by Merry Farmer

Rating: WARTY!

"London playwright Niall Cristofori might be famous for his plays about love — but his own heart was broken 10 years ago by Lord Blake Williamson." So move on already, dipshit. "When they reunite, can they seize their second chance for a happily ever after?" Who honestly cares? I guarantee you that this story will have nothing whatseover to do with playwrights or lordships, or love, and there's sure as hell no romance since it's all about lust. Period. Yawn.

Shadow Hunters by EJ King

Rating: WARTY!

"Taken from her home in the middle of the night, Alex is given a new identity and forced to start over in a different town." because that happens all the time, and the dumb-ass YA girls in them are never quite smart enough to figure out how to run away and get back home. "And when she meets her mysterious new classmate Daniel," who is really Saint George who will validate and rescue this useless woman.... Barf. Seriously? How many more of these dumb-fuck, cloned YA stories are we going to get? I guarantee you this isn't the last. Somewhere out there even now, someone has their cookie-cutters flying to outline yet another retreaded version of this story just like this is a retreaded version of a thousand such stories that have gone before it.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan

Rating: WARTY!

Oh, how I wish it were the last werewolf. It never is; unfortunately, these tired stories will go on forever. "A chance encounter leads Jake Marlowe," business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge - "...the world’s last werewolf, to rediscover his passion for life" - with a woman, perhaps, that he will rape into being a fellow werewolf? Barf. You know 'wer' is the Old English word for 'man' right? The word means literally, 'man wolf'. There should be no female werewolves.

Sweet Revenge by Morgana Best

Rating: WARTY!

"Cocoa is living the sweet life running a candy store." Cocoa? Really? "But everything sours when her former bullies start dropping dead one by one, making her the prime suspect!" What former bullies? From high school? Seriously? Naturally she'd be the prime suspect for ancient history! This is the dumbest plot I've come across in a couple of days; not that this says much since dumb plots are rife in these s. "Can she unwrap the truth in time to ensure the real culprit is caught?" And she has to do this why? Because the police are, as usual in these crappy stories, useless? I'll tell you who did it: it's someone who admitrd her from afar and felt bad for her in school, and is seeing-off the bullies because of that. But why wait until now? There will be no good answer for that question, I promise you. It's not the best, it's the worst. It;s the same story as "The Sweet Shop of Second Chances" by Hannah Lynn. Yawn.

What I Did for Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Rating: WARTY!

"After a Hollywood star tumbles off her pedestal, she embarks on a misguided adventure that leads her to a fake marriage with an absolute mess of a former costar — who just so happens to be incredibly handsome!" So she fell off her pedestal and decides the best way to get back on is to outright lie about shit. Way to go, asshole. She sure is someone I want to read about! Yet again with the fake relationship. Yawn. Let me know when she gives up acting and shit gets real. On second thought - no, don't bother. I don't care. Maybe at some distant point down the road, someone somewhere, will write something original. We can hope, right? Yawn.

The Fine Art of Invisible Detection by Robert Goddard

Rating: WARTY!

This sounded great from the description, but about halfway through, it turned into one of those pathetic little horror movies where the girl is running from the indestructable and unstoppable bad guy, and I quit right there. It's not a YA story - the protagonist is a commendable 47 years old, but once she began behaving like a YA screamer girl (sans the screaming, thankfully) I had to get out of there. On top of that, the story was already plodding, to the point where I was starting to become bored and listless with the 'not going anywhere any time soon' plot, even before the idiot scene that proved to be the final straw for me.

Umiko Wada works as an assistant to a private detective, but after a visit from a mysterious and well-off woman, her boss is killed in a suspicious hit and run, and Umiko decides to pursue the dangerous investigation, hopping to London, the USA, and Iceland, but every time she moves, we get a crumb of a clue, and that's all. And naturally it's all tied to a bad event in her past because all these stories are.

Finally she heads to a mysterious property in the middle of nowhere on Iceland, and they take an inappropriate rental vehicle in bad weather. Magically their trip coincides with a visit from the bad guy, who kills her companion. Umiko commendably hits him with her vehicle, but instead of making sure he's dead and taking his own four-wheel drive vehicle while rendering her own unusable, she takes off in her own useless car, leaving the bad guy to inevitably resurrect and follow her. That was enough for me. It's so trope and it tells me the protagonist is a moron, and I have no intention of pursuing cliched novels about stupid women. I can't commend this based on what I could stand to plow through.

The Awakening of Ren Crown by Anne Zoelle

Rating: WARTY!

"The Awakening of Ren Crown is the start of an epic adventure featuring a protagonist who would rather be diligently working in her lab than saving (or ending) the world - but who will do anything to protect her family and friends." Including ending the world? Of course it's the start of a series! What did you expect: a 'series' of unconnected original novels that don't retread the same plots and charcters over and over, and over again? I'm sorry to inform you that we don't live in that world any more. And what are the odds this is in first person? 100% I'd say. Yawn. Move along: there's nothing to see hear or smell.

Bringing Stella Home by Joe Vasicek

Rating: WARTY!

Novels that feature a woman's name in the title are almost inevitably bad. Are there more such novels featuring a woman's name than there are a man's? I suspect there are, which would make for an interesting study. "James McCoy, the youngest son of a starfaring merchanter family, never thought he would face an invasion. But when an undefeated enemy slags his homeworld and carries off his brother and sister, nothing in the universe will stop him from getting them back." Um, sheer distance? Writers of these space operas never imagine for a minute the energy costs of interstellar travel - they just wave a hand and it all goes away! But here's the thing: why do these aliens give a shit about this dude's brother and sister when they've apparently wiped out a whole world? And how was that possible? Again, there's an energy crisis here but the real issue is that both his brother and his sister - in that order - were abducted, so whence the female-slanted title? Yawn.