Tag Archive: Fiction



This Is How You Lose The Time WarThis Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time travel is interesting. Yeah, but here we have one more reason for war. The espionage is too much. I can’t handle more reasons to feel paranoid. I read to escape the heavy stuff or to study writing. But this didn’t do either job for me.

Cynthia Farrell’s (the Narrator) voice was good for the story, but sadly, I didn’t feel she saved it.

A friend recommended this to me. Time travel piqued my interest. Here, take a look at the blurb:

Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Best Science Fiction (2019)
Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and fall in love in this thrilling and romantic book from award-winning authors Amal-El Mohtar and Max Gladstone.

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.

Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That’s how war works. Right?

Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.

Maybe it was the COVID brain. Maybe I’ll try it again someday. Maybe you will love it. It just didn’t do it for me.

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Squeeze MeSqueeze Me by Carl Hiaasen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Curiosity. That is why this book got all of two stars. I wanted to know what was going to happen, where the plot was going to take us.

Sadly, I never enjoyed it and nearly quit reading often. I like my fiction to be enjoyable or intriguing. This was neither. Even without the political leaning, I don’t think I would have liked it. I didn’t like any of the characters except the snake, I guess.

This author is pretty popular, but I should have known I wouldn’t like this. I read Skinny Dip and found it equally boring. And not as annoying. Nor did I like the narrator, Scott Brick. Another male who made women sound like he despised them.

If you like Mr. Hiaasen’s writing, you might like this. Otherwise, go find something you might not feel you’ve wasted time reading.

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The ChangeThe Change by Whoopi Goldberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, this was fun. As a post-menopausal woman, before pre-menopausal was made popular by Oprah, I remembered my mother in her 60s talking about still getting hot flashes. My friend and I celebrated each other’s accomplishments in womanhood and crone with a talk about power surges. So it was nice years later to see our superpowers claimed and made real as all superhero actions work.

Still, it is nice that our younger sisters are finally getting the strength we were not awarded.

Again, the comic book was fun. But I have a huge problem. I hate cliffhangers! Obviously, this is to be a series. I may or may not fall for the next one.

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Review: The Sirens by Emilia Hart


The SirensThe Sirens by Emilia Hart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was brilliantly written. I loved the many tools that Emilia Hart used to tell this story. History, podcasts, journals, and dreams. My Kindle text-to-speech was perfect for this read.

This isn’t your average Young Adult fantasy mermaid story. This one has meat and history, and mysteries on different levels are presented throughout the book.

I was so grateful to get to read this through NetGalley. If you get the chance, it is well worth the time and money to buy and savor.

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The Psychology of Time TravelThe Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Below is a previous review of Kate Mascarenhas’s The Psychology of Time Travel. It was with Kindle text-to-speech. I have to admit that this Audible version rates the same. Ellie Heydon (Narrator) doesn’t vary her voice enough to help the listener tell the differences between characters, places, emotions, or times. One difference was one character sounded like they had a cold, but other than that, it was all the same, and I couldn’t figure out why the nasal voice belonged to who it belonged to.

Even so, it was a fun read with time travel rules bent a little differently than other books of this nature. I think it is worth the read, and maybe, in this case, just a paper or visual read.
~~~

A friend recommended this to me. She knew I loved reading about the concept of time travel. And she was not wrong. This was very interesting and even brought up ideas I hadn’t considered before. A lot of time travel science is included in the book, but I loved the story. I loved reading about all the different women who invented the time machines.

I borrowed this Kindle edition from the library. And for a lot of books, the text-to-speech works quite well. But for this book, it made it more challenging. All the voices are the same one, no matter the time or area the person was from; it was the same voice with no emotion. So I got pretty mixed up with who was who. So I have ordered the Audible version to try again later. I am concerned as there are so many characters I may have to take notes to keep it all straight.

Still, even as it was, I found it engaging every single night. I never wanted to quit reading, even when confused.

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Worst Case ScenarioWorst Case Scenario by T.J. Newman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

T.J. Newman wrote a fantastic disaster movie, I mean a disaster book. Joe Morton (Narrator) brought the writing to life. Joe was able to make each character show up. I never felt like he was being demeaning to women or children, as many male narrators seem to do.

The title says it all. And you know, going in, it is going to get rough and may not get better. Don’t make this your gentle-yourself-to-sleep read. Take it from me: it won’t work. But every waking hour I could, I had the audiobook reading to me.

Here’s the blurb from GoodReads:
When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, a commercial airliner filled with passengers crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota, which becomes ground zero for a catastrophic national crisis with global implications.

The International Nuclear Event Scale tracks nuclear disasters. It has seven levels. Level 7 is a Major Accident, with only two on record: Fukushima and Chernobyl. There has never been a Level 8. Until now.

In this heart-stopping thriller, ordinary people—power plant employees, firefighters, teachers, families, neighbors, and friends— are thrust into an extraordinary situation as they face the ultimate test of their lives. It will take the combined courage, ingenuity, and determination of a brave few to save not only their community and loved ones, but the fate of humanity at large.

~~~
If you’re looking for a fast scary ride, read this one.

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The Bookstore SistersThe Bookstore Sisters by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was cute. I’m not much of a short story fan, but this fits the moment. I needed something to read after the last book left me an hour from sleep time. It is fun to finish a book in an hour or so.

I had this one tucked away in my Audible library. Jennifer Jill Araya, the narrator, was able to keep the characters fresh and sincere.

There are a couple more novellas following this one. I plan to get them and finish the story.

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The Four WindsThe Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am quite the Kristin Hannah fan now. After The Women, I had to read this when it appeared as a suggestion on Libby. Knowing Julia Whelan, the narrator, sealed the deal. She is the most excellent reader. She seems to intuitively read Ms. Hannah’s characters, making the whole story alive and relevant.

Hannah can write historical fiction so that the facts, ‘names and dates’ type of history get lost in following love and family.

After following the book to the conclusion, I was happy to find a bit of discussion about the writing procedure and even Ms. Whelan’s way of narrating. I am still quite interested in that process.

We Baby Boomers can remember hearing about the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression from our grandparents and parents. Even though I was forced to read Grapes of Wrath (ugh!) and remember dusty pictures in the history textbooks, this made the historical events real.

I highly recommend this audiobook!

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The Covenant of WaterThe Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Can I give this book 20 stars? This was amazing! So many levels and people and places and stories to immerse in!

Abraham Verghese (Author/Narrator) is breathtaking. His writing, knowledge, and ability to voice all the characters so believably from an Indian accent to a Scottish accent, and for a man, his women were varied and respectable, all just astounded me.

I think I saw this recommended on a television show. I was able to pick it up on Libby. I’m so glad I did. But I loved this huge book so much that even though it took me days to read (listen to), I felt at a loss to bid my new friends goodbye. This goes on my wishlist for paperback, Kindle, and Audible versions.

It is a hefty book. But if you plug away at it, you will have lived through several generations and lands. How many books give you that kind of experience?

Please, if you get the chance, read or listen to this one. I doubt you will regret it.

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The Black Bird Oracle (All Souls, #5)The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has to be my favorite so far. And I can tell there is more to come. We aren’t left on a cliff, so we’re feeling happy and safe for the moment.

And YAY! Jennifer Ikeda is back as our narrator. I love how well she acts out the characters. I am never lost wondering whose point of view we are in.

The twins are growing up, so it is fun to see what traits they have inherited and how they react to the world.

Ah, but now I have to wait for the next book. I love Deborah Harkness’s writing and the research evident in these stories. Historical fiction is so much easier to take than boring fiction taught to us with just guys’ names and dates of wars. The Black Bird Oracles is the best book yet!

If you liked The Discovery of Witches, keep reading.

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