After a lot of rereads last month, I brought home a big bag of books from the library and have been off on a lot of new reads more recently.

I continued my T. Kingfisher reading with Paladin’s Strength, sequel to Paladin’s Grace, focused on a supporting character from the previous book.  It was very good with some nice turns to the story, if not quite as good as the first in the series – but Paladin’s Grace is a serious contender for best of the year right now, so it’s hardly fair to set the bar that high!  I very much enjoyed the second one too, and plan to finish the trilogy.

I got up to date on the Morrigan Crow series with Hollowpox by Jessica Townsend.  I believe the next book is due out later in the year.  I liked Book 3 better than Book 2 in this case, as Morrigan got to do much more with her magic and that was very fun.  I was not prepared for a plague story, though.  I guess the title should have tipped me off, but I genuinely didn’t make the ‘pox connection!  Still good, but I’m glad I didn’t read this a year ago – and I think some of the “terrible” government restrictions trying to curb the pox (like…a curfew) may read differently now than they would have pre-Covid…

I caught up with The Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire as well – I somehow missed the release of the most recent book, Where the Drowned Girls Go.  It was excellent, as this series always is, going some fascinating new directions.  A series around children (teenagers really) who’ve returned to our world after venturing into other, magical worlds, this whole series is fantastic.

I also started a new series, The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, about a Security Unit, an artificial construct of combined mechanical and organic parts, who has intense social anxiety.  It’s not quite as funny as it sounds like it could be, but I’m enjoying it anyway.  I’m currently on Book 3 in the series – they’re novellas, so pretty fast reads, and I find they’re getting better as they go.  On the first one, I barely got a handle on the world and the story was over!

Everything seems to be series at the moment, because my last read was also the first in a series…but I’m probably not continuing this one.  I read View from the Imperium by Jody Lynn Nye because I heard the author on a podcast described it as Jeeves and Wooster in space.  I enjoy the original Wodehouse stories, so that sounded appealing!  I see why she described it that way – there are very clearly Jeeves and Wooster characters – but the book just didn’t have any of Wodehouse’s humor, which was disappointing.  It was an all right read, but I don’t expect to continue the series.

Still, all in all, a pretty good round of reading!